


High School Never Ends

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Car Accidents, Coma, Developing Relationship, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamselves, Episode: s03e02 The Reunion Job, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Help, High School, Homecoming Dance, Hurt/Comfort, Parker Being Parker (Leverage), Physical Therapy, Protective Eliot Spencer, Rehabilitation, Team as Family, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2019-06-22 05:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 60,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15574653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: After The Reunion Job, Parker feels bad about not understanding high school since she never attended. Eliot would like to help her but there's really no way he can. Maybe Parker can figure it out herself, but as usual with her, it won't be in a way that anyone expects...





	1. Chapter 1

It ought to be too early in the morning for anybody to be up and walking around the streets of Boston, but then Eliot Spencer wasn't your average person, and he was always happier when he had a job to do. Sure, he lied about the ninety minutes sleep a night, but he didn't need that much rest and liked it better if he didn't sleep long enough to dream. He had learnt to survive this way, just like he'd leant to run with a team these days.

Heading over to the office, Eliot was pretty sure he'd be the first one there. There had been no call to say they had a new job but it was a habit to come over most mornings. After their latest con, they took the weekend off to recoup, but now it was Monday and the hitter was getting that itch to be doing something with his time, and moreover with his fists. At least these days Nate's place was less of the guy's apartment and more of a team base, a little more like the office in LA used to be. Eliot had a training room there so if there were no people for him to beat on any time soon, at least he could take out some frustration on a punching bag.

Thoughts of fighting only intensified when he opened the door to the sound of voices he didn't recognise. Battle-ready, he flung open the door, letting his stance fall within seconds when he realised the people he was hearing were only on the TV, not actually present in the room. With a frown on his face, Eliot wandered over to the couch where Parker had apparently been sleeping. She came to fast when the door slammed shut behind the hitter, and the little thief stared at him with wide eyes as she sat bolt upright on the cushions.

"Parker, what the hell are you doin'?" he asked, noticing that not only was she still wearing the same clothes as she had been Friday night when the job was over, but she was surrounded by piles of dvds!

"I was... learning, researching." She shrugged, turning down the volume on the TV and staring with a sad kind of a smile at the couple on the huge vid screen that appeared to be King and Queen of the Prom.

"High School movies?" said Eliot with a frown as he started sifting through the titles, "Parker, you're not gonna learn anything about real High Schools by watching this crap" he told her, tossing aside Mean Girls, Pretty in Pink, and Clueless, getting the urge to launch High School Musical right out of a window.

"Well it's not like I have any other way to know what it was like," she sighed heavily, looking decidedly sad.

Eliot opened his mouth to start in on her again for being so dumb but changed his mind when he noticed how down she looked. High School wasn't always a great experience for everybody. Sure, he had a pretty good time of it himself, being popular and good at sports and all, but it seemed wrong somehow that a person shouldn't have experienced it in any way, either good or bad.

"You been here all weekend?" he asked, gesturing for her to move over so he could sit down beside her.

"Uh-huh." Parker nodded, staring at the screen still as the scene faded to black and the credits began to roll.

"And Nate didn't mind?" he checked, looking around pointlessly for the guy who lived there, finding it strange that he wasn't around.

"Sophie says this is our base now, and not so much his place." The blonde shrugged, switching off the TV now her latest movie choice was done. "Were you King of the Prom?" she asked then, all out of left field like most questions she came up with.

Eliot considered whether it was better to tell her the truth or lie, unsure which would get less ribbing if Hardison and the others found out.

"Yeah, twice actually," he admitted with a satisfied smirk that he just couldn't help as he thought back on those days. "What can I say? I was popular back then." He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

Parker didn't actually answer him, barely looked at him actually as she got up to remove her dvd from the player. She wondered vaguely on whether or not she would've been popular in High School and came to the conclusion that probably not. Maybe it was better that she never went, she considered, but then it might've been nice, she might've turned out very differently if she had those experiences that her whole team seemed to know about.

"Nate's been drinking," she said, changing the subject on a dime just like always. "Mostly the only times I saw him was when he came down for another bottle," she said as she returned to the couch and plopped down beside the hitter again.

"Great," he sighed, tipping his head back and pushing his hands through his hair. "That's just great".

Eliot had hoped that they had got past Nate and his drunkenness on jobs, but apparently not. In some ways things had been easier when he was in jail, though it seemed unjust to think so. Maybe he would have slept off the booze by now, if they were lucky, or maybe Sophie would manage to get him under control. Either way, Eliot still wanted something to do and if there was no job right now, he was going to hit the training room to knock the hell out of the punching bag for a while.

He got up without explaining where he was going and wasn't wholly surprised when Parker followed him. She watched him sometimes, perhaps more often lately than ever before, though Eliot chose not to ask why. There were times when they had sparred together since he taught her self-defence and all. He never had any doubts that she'd be strong and flexible enough for the moves, he had been sure she just needed a little guidance and discipline, and had been proven right.

Today it seemed she had no intention of joining in as she hovered at the door, just watching as he stretched out and then taped up his hands in preparation for his one-sided fight. It was weird how normal he felt about having her there, how not creepy it was these days. Eliot wasn't sure when he'd become okay with her appearing in rooms unannouced or staring without a reason why, but it had happened and it made things a little less hostile, which was nice, given the fact that so much of his life revolved around fighting.

"Did I steal the wrong movies?" she asked so suddenly, she might've thrown Eliot off his rhythm if he wasn't already half-expecting she had something to say still.

"No, it's not... You stole all those?" he changed his answer mid-way when his mind processed the fact Parker had managed to lift a least forty dvds from a store without getting caught.

"Duh!" she exclaimed, like he was dumb for asking such a question.

Eliot opened his mouth to ask how the hell she managed it but was pretty sure she wouldn't tell. Besides, it was hardly the point of the conversation.

"There are no movies or books or TV shows that'll show you what it's like to go to High School, Parker," he told her, putting out an arm to catch the punch bag on the back-swing and hold it steady. "I know it's tough for you, not knowing and all, but... I don't know what to tell you." He shook his head, telling her honestly how it was.

Parker always liked that about Eliot, he was one of the most honest people she knew, which was strange for a thief, but it was true. Sophie and Nate would not answer her awkward questions or gloss over things with lies to protect her. Hardison always tried to make her the way he would like her to be, a little more normal and all. He did it in a nice way, but it still bugged her. With Eliot she knew where she was. He told her if she said something dumb or crazy, and he seemed to want to be her friend in spite of all of that.

A smile lit up her face so suddenly, it might've startled Eliot if he were anyone else. She was out of her shoes and stripping off her sweat-shirt in moments, getting ready to square up to Eliot after a few simple stretches to get her muscles ready.

"Okay, come at me," she told him, beckoning him across the mat towards her.

"Sure?" he checked, unable to help the smile that curved his lips at the prospect.

They'd done this a hundred times before and he always went easy on her, he had to or they both knew what the ugly outcome would be. Sometimes he let her seem to win before turning the tables at the last. The truth was, she was pretty good with the moves and everything, though he chose not to tell her most of the time. Today would be no different to any other time they did this, Eliot was sure, and yet he was wrong.

It started out the same, he moved towards her, faked a punch and as expected she caught his hand and used his own momentum to spin him around. They danced as much as they fought when they did this, but it lasted maybe a minute instead of several as he suddenly swept Parker's legs out from under her and pinned her to the ground with the weight of his body.

"There's something wrong with you," he said, not nastily as he sometimes had when they first met, but with just a hint of worry in his voice and eyes as he stared down at her.

"I'm fine," she insisted, even as she squirmed to get away and found she could not remember the right way to do it.

Her eyes were only half open, and there were dark circles forming beneath them. Her grip when she made a grab at him was weak at best and the few punches she'd tried to throw hadn't even come close to making contact. She was never this sloppy, and it bothered Eliot more than he was comfortable with. He ought to move and let her up already, and yet he knew if he did that she would just bolt and not explain herself.

"How much sleep have you had since the last job?" he asked her, deciding it was the most obvious explanation for the state she was in.

"About a half hour before you showed up?" She shrugged awkwardly from beneath his weight.

Rolling his eyes at how dumb she was sometimes, Eliot lifted himself off her and offered a hand to help her up. On principal she refused the help and leapt to her feet without any assistance.

"I'm fine," she told him, dusting off her rear, making her escape out of the door before he had a chance to say anything else.

Eliot had planned to go after her, remind her it was important for to take care of herself. She already ate crap most of the time, her body couldn't handle a lack of sleep as well, he was sure. Unfortunately, it seemed there was no time for the concerned speech right now as he followed her out into the main room and found Nate coming down the stairs, already on his cell to the others.

"Yeah, we have a new job," he told either Sophie or Hardison, it wasn't clear which. "I need you over here fast."

"Cool, new job," said Parker with not quite as much enthusiasm as she sometimes had.

Eliot watched her head straight to the coffee machine and flip the switch. This was a bad idea, starting a con with their crazy thief so tired, but it wasn't his call. She was a big girl and she could take care of herself, more or less. He wasn't her Daddy or her boyfriend, he had no rights to advise her on what she should or shouldn't do. Hell, half the time they barely got along as the friends they ought to be, so he didn't say a word.

"Er, where'd she get all these?" asked Nate as he picked up the top dvd from one of three piles on the coffee table and stared at it curiously.

"Search me, man." The hitter shrugged, pulling the tape off his hands. "Three years in, I still don't understand her," he admitted. "Probably never will."


	2. Chapter 2

Parker ought to have known today wasn't going to go well. Whilst she was engrossed in the movies she had stolen, she didn't think much about eating or sleeping. She had snacked on a couple of boxes of cereal and such, and had clearly dozed off a little while before Eliot showed up at the apartment that morning, but that was it. He had told her many times she ought to take better care of herself, and though she knew he was right, she rarely listened.

The little thief with just the one name had learnt long ago to take care of herself and so advice from others, good or bad, tended to slide off her as if she were Teflon-coated. Nothing stuck, nothing went in. She lived by her own rules for the most part and never really considered that her own instincts were wrong. Today was one of the very rare occasions when she realised maybe she had made a mistake.

Three black coffees and a can of Red Bull had her awake and aware enough for the con, at least for the first part which was pretty easy anyway. It was a simple in and out job, to check the security they might be up against later. Though her hands shook from the sudden caffeine overload, she had made it in and out of the building without incident, which frankly even surprised Parker herself. She was only glad her first task in the con was over so she could go get some sleep before the bigger, more complex parts started flying at her.

Immediately they got back to base, Nate had told Parker she should go home and get some rest whilst he figured out the best way forward. She was grateful to be released, but didn't know exactly why. Eliot had mentioned her lack of sleep to their leader, knowing that otherwise Nate wouldn't have noticed a problem at all. His head was on the job not on what the team needed all of the time, which made the hitter all the more grateful that he had gotten in first this morning and realised something wasn't right with Parker.

"I'll drive you," he offered easily, following her to the apartment door. "Truck's out front."

"It's fine," she insisted with a wave of her hand as if to dismiss him. "My car is close too," she said as she left, slamming the door behind her, practically in Eliot's face.

He thought maybe she was still being weird about them seeing where she really lived or maybe it bothered her that he asked her what was wrong before. Neither of them were much for talking about feelings or for noticing anyone else's either. Still, he called her on her weirdness this morning and she bolted like she always did when things got complicated. It could be as simple as the lack of sleep throwing her off-balance, but Eliot couldn't help but wonder if it ran deeper than that. This whole lack of a High School experience thing seemed to have really gotten to her, something he realised all over again as he glanced over to the table and the pile of dvds still stacked there.

The truth was that Parker had realised all too late today that she had shown weakness. Not only that but she had almost allowed herself to rely on someone else for a little while there, on Eliot of all people. No matter how much she cared about the team in her own special way, she was not ready to admit she couldn't do without them, not yet.

Eliot hovered by the door a while after she was gone. Parker was really in no fit state to be driving, but knowing how she could be sometimes, both stubborn and crazy in equal measure, there was a good chance she'd just run him down with her car if he tried to get in her way right now, so he let her go. He put his faith in the fact that ultimately Parker knew what was best for her. After all, she'd taken care of herself for years enough before the team, she had to be good at it.

Eliot walked back to the kitchen, pocketing his car keys as he went, deciding to leave the little thief be for a while. He had no way of knowing now, but he would regret that decision within the hour.

Outside, Parker was sat in her car, staring unseeing through the windshield. Immediately she contemplated the journey home she started to wonder if maybe she should have accepted Eliot's offer of a ride. Blinking hard a couple of times, she physically shook herself, made herself awake, and started up the engine. It wasn't that far to the apartment she called home, the one the rest of the team knew nothing about. Sure, the caffeine fix from earlier was fading fast and leaving her to crash into a drowsiness even worse than first thing this morning, but she could deal, she knew she could. Traffic wasn't so bad and it would only get easy when she got out of the centre of town. All this she tried to tell herself, some of it even out loud, as she also tried to concentrate on the road before her, on other cars and signals and signs, speed limits and pedestrians trying to cross the street.

Parker was barely out of the centre of Boston when her vision swum a little. She was so tired, beyond tired, and it was becoming the only thing she could think about. Usually she worked through it just fine, but it was literally four days since she had a decent amount of sleep and between having that fact pointed out to her and coming down off the major caffeine high, she was really feeling it.

"Not good," she muttered to herself as the lights turned red at the next intersection and stayed that way too long.

It was long enough that Parker allowed her usually perfect concentration to lapse a second. Her eyes fell shut and the world went away, just long enough to screw things up. The car behind honking his horn jolted her attention back to the road and the situation at hand. The light was green, green meant go, and so her foot hit the gas maybe a little harder than it should... just when that same light went back to red.

Parker never felt a thing. She always thought car wrecks had to be both painful and loud. Metal on metal, shattering glass, cuts and bruises as a soft bodied human was thrown around like a ragdoll in the metal container that was a car. This was not what she expected, the sharp pain and enveloping blackness that was oddly comforting. Her body and brain had both been craving sleep for hours now - wish granted.

* * *

"You can slice it any way you want, Nate, but this is because of me," said Eliot crossly as they walked across the parking lot towards of the hospital. "I shoulda made her get in the damn truck. She was in no fit state to drive herself!" he insisted.

"Getting upset is not going to help, Parker!" Sophie told him firmly, tears in her eyes that she just couldn't help as she turned to face the two of them as well as Hardison outside the main doors. "Now, we need to get our cover straight," she dropped her voice lower so no-one would hear. "I think me and Nate can pass for parents, um, Eliot we'll say step-brother, I'm not old enough for anything else, and Hardison you can take fiancé, okay?" she said, setting everyone's story so they would all be permitted to see their friend in this 'family only' situation.

"Whatever, let's just get in there," the hacker said grimly, panicking on the inside and outwardly projecting nothing as the team headed inside.

They knew which alias Parker was using from the call they'd gotten at the time of her accident. The roles they must play only had to be kept up in front of staff, once inside the room with her it really wouldn't matter anymore. Sophie was having a hard time keeping control of her own feelings right now, but the task of keeping everyone else in check fell to her too. Nate was in no fit state, having to walk into a hospital to face the prospect of a child so badly hurt. Of course he wasn't really Parker's father, and she wasn't Sam, but it all came down to the same thing. For all that she was, a thief and all, there was so much of a child about Parker, so much that needed to be taken care of and reassured. Nate couldn't stand the idea of her being in pain like this, the potential outcome that she could be irreparably damaged or worse...

"Yes, ma'am, right this way," he heard the nurse say as he tuned back into the conversation at hand. "Oh, but it really should only be two at a time," she said awkwardly as she glanced around the group of four who all made to follow her.

Sophie glanced back at Nate and Hardison as Eliot kept walking, not willing to argue about the fact that he needed to see Parker.

"You go," the Mastermind nodded to Sophie. "We'll wait."

Hardison didn't looked thrilled about that, but there was no use in arguing. He knew they'd be back before long and he'd get his chance to see Parker. It wasn't as if she was going to die or anything, he told himself, she was tougher than all the rest of them put together on the inside, else she wouldn't have survived this long the way she had.

Down the hall, Sophie and Eliot were let into Parker's room by the nurse, who then scurried away saying she would fetch a doctor to talk to them.

"Oh my God," the grifter gasped at the sight of her friend, her hand going over her mouth as she took in the bandage wrapped around poor Parker's head.

Eliot cursed under his breath as he approached the bed, wishing that there was somebody else he could blame for this, someone he could knock into next Thursday so they could suffer like they'd made Parker suffer. Unfortunately, there was no one person you could beat a confession out of, or put in a hole in the ground for the sake of retribution. The cause of the car wreck was Parker herself, and the fact she was beyond tired. She never should have been driving, and Eliot blamed himself for the fact she ever was.

"Parker, honey, I'm so sorry," he told her as he sat down on the chair by the bed, staring at her still form.

She might have been sleeping, if he didn't know any better. There really wasn't a scratch on her that could be seen, her pale skin unmarked by the ordeal her body had been through so far. The bandage around her head was the only sign there was anything wrong, that and the fact that no amount of calling or cajoling would wake her right now.

"She looks so peaceful," said Sophie, with a crack in her voice. "Like Sleeping Beauty." She smiled a watery smile that collapsed the very next moment as she cried.

"Hey," Eliot went to her immediately, putting an arm around her shoulders that ought to have been comforting, but it wasn't really going to help right now.

"I'm alright," the grifter insisted though she looked anything but, knowing that as easy as it would be to collapse into tears, it wasn't going to help anybody.

She had to be tougher than this, strong enough to see the team through. They'd had injuries before, none more so than Eliot, and Nate with the drinking, that had been a real worry, but nothing like this. Parker always seemed so young and strangely fragile despite how strong the team all knew she had to be. She didn't eat right and apparently she didn't sleep right either, things they should have noticed and tried to help her with. Now that Sophie thought on it, she felt as guilty as anyone for not being more use to her dear friend, and yet it was Eliot who seemed to be blaming himself the most still.

"It's my job," he muttered. "To protect her, to protect all of you... and I let this happen."

"You didn't," the grifter insisted as she moved out from under his arm and fixed him with a severe look. "No one person is to blame for this, okay? We all should be looking out for each other, we all should have tried harder," she told him, stopping short of starting a full scale fight when the doctor appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Doc," said Eliot looking from him to Parker and back. "How's she doin'?"

"Well, with regard to physical injuries, as far as we can tell she has no broken bones or internal bleeding," the man bearing the badge that stated Dr Sheppard began to explain, referencing the chart in his hands. "Of course, we're keeping an eye on that as things can occur later than are undetectable now..."

"So, she's going to be okay?" asked Sophie, knowing she shouldn't have interrupted before Eliot ever glared at her but not willing to admit it.

Dr Sheppard sighed, as he removed his glasses. He hated this part of the job, the helpless and pointless part where he could do next to nothing but impart bad news.

"I'm afraid that your daughter has suffered a rather nasty blow to the head when the collision occurred," he said sadly. "Now, as far as we can tell from the scans we've performed there's no haemorrhage of the brain and no actual cracks in the skull," he confirmed. "However, the next twenty four hours will be crucial."

"Always the first twenty four hours," Eliot muttered to himself as he dropped back into the seat beside Parker's hospital bed, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Indeed," the doctor nodded once. "I'm afraid if we continue to get no response from her, well, the longer it goes on the worse it looks."

"But she could be, okay?" said Sophie, with desperate hope in her voice. "I mean, she could just wake up, any time?"

"Potentially," Dr Sheppard agreed, "but, I have to warn you, ma'am, there's also a very high possibility that your daughter might remain in this state for some time, but as I said, there's really know way of knowing just yet..."

Eliot tuned out the doctor's voice after that and Sophie's too as she asked more questions that he already knew were pointless. That tone of voice was a medical staff special and he'd heard it before, knowing that it was not a good sign. So far it'd only been a couple of hours, this was still a concussion, medically speaking. If it went on, if Parker hadn't woken after six, she would be declared comatose. There were a number of reasons why the body shut down this way, most had to do with trying to conserve energy for the core functions, to heal injuries or allow a person's body to cope with trauma. She was just so tired and then the impact of the accident, Parker's body needed so much rest right now, Eliot had no doubt she'd be like this for days.

"You rest up, darlin'," he told her, putting a gentle hand on top of hers there on the bed. "We'll all be right here when you wake up," he promised, not knowing whether or not she could hear a word, not really believing she could, but finding he was desperate enough to try anything right now.

* * *

There was a ringing in her head that Parker couldn't make sense of. Something making an awful irritating noise in the darkness of her peaceful slumber. Someone wanted her awake and that didn't suit the little thief at all, even less so when they started jostling her shoulder and yelling too close to her ear.

"What?" she exclaimed as she sat up fast, glancing around a room she didn't recognise, from a bed that was equally as unfamiliar.

"C'mon, sweetheart, up and at 'em," said a man she knew and yet really had not expected to see here.

"Archie?" she murmured as she gazed up in wonder at the sight of her father-figure, looking much more casual than she remembered, with a dish towel flung over his shoulder and a spatula in his hand.

"C'mon, kiddo, breakfast is almost ready," he told her as he headed for the door. "First day at your new high school, you don't want to be late, do you?"

Parker looked panicked as her eyes drifted around all four walls, the door out of which Archie had just walked, and then across at a mirror in which she could see herself. She was the same as she remembered herself being, though maybe a little younger, with Bunny sat beside her in the bed.

"High school?" she gasped not really sure what to make of this. "This is a dream... right?" she asked the stuffed toy at her side, since nobody else was there.

The last thing she remembered was... well, it was hazy, but she was pretty sure she had been driving her car through Boston, but now Parker really wasn't sure where she was or what the hell just happened. Pinching herself on the arm, she jumped from the pain it caused and shook her head.

"Nope, not a dream," she told herself, and yet she didn't freak out so much as she hopped out of bed and took a look around.

It was like the bedroom she always wanted as a teenager, like she'd seen on TV and dreamed she could have. Photos of friends pinned around a mirror, posters and such tacked to the wall, rows of collectibles and stuffed toys all lined up on shelves. Archie seemed to be acting like he really was her father, and Bunny was here just like he always had been her whole life. It seemed that whatever the hell had happened, Parker was in some kind of dream place she wasn't going to wake from, and wasn't sure she wanted to as she breathed in the smell of bacon cooking downstairs and let a smile spread across her lips.

"I'm going to high school," she said to herself, loving the idea a little more every second.


	3. Chapter 3

Parker ought to be freaking out, she knew that she should, and yet surprisingly not. Maybe that was because of the way she was wired a little backwards compared to everybody else. A 'normal' person would be freaked at the idea of waking up after a car wreck to find themselves playing the part of a younger version of themself going off to high school like the regular teen they never were. For Parker, this was just great!

The whole of her life, Parker had made wishes, on shooting stars and birthday candles and such. Since she was little, she never really believed they would come true, and yet couldn't help but take the oppurtunity to ask for the favours she never expected the world to grant her. Maybe this was the universe proving her wrong, by granting her this wish, this one thing she longed to have - a high school experience.

Parker was grinning like an idiot as Archie pulled the car up outside the building and told her to have a good first day. It was a little intimidating, all the people wandering around, some of them turning to stare at her. Still, Parker looked up at the sign that bore the school's name and remembered all Sophie had taught her about self-confidence and such, as she climbed out of the car and headed into Leverage high school.

Her eyes took in the people, the building, every little detail as she clutched her books to her chest and hurried inside. So distracted was Parker by her surroundings, she completely missed someone sticking their foot out into her path, the trip sending her sprawling onto the hall floor.

The sound of nasty girls giggling filled her ears, making her feel both embarrassed and angry. Parker moved to get up, just a little startled when a hand grabbed her arm. She snapped into action just like she had been taught, striking out and almost causing injury before she realised her mistake.

"Hey, easy," said a voice she recognised and Parker turned to look up into familiar blue eyes. "I was just tryin' to help," he told her, giving her a hand up now she would let him.

"Eliot." She smiled, confused by his presence and the fact he looked younger somehow and a lot less angry than usual, but still nonetheless pleased he was here.

"You know my name, but I don't know yours," he said, confusing her all the more as he helped gather up her books and handed them back to her. "Oh, I'm guessing you saw the pictures, right?" he guessed pointing to the glass cabinet Parker now realised was right behind her.

Inside it were trophies and pictures of sports teams. Eliot Spencer was named as Captain for both football and baseball. Yeah, that would work for how she knew his name since apparently she wasn't supposed to yet.

"Uh, yeah," she lied, though he didn't seem to notice. "I... I totally read this, before I got tripped," she confirmed. "I'm Parker," she told him, offering a hand to shake.

Eliot seemed amused by her quirkiness more than annoyed as he took the hand and smiled.

"Parker, right," he nodded. "Well, Parker, you shouldn't worry about girls like them," he said, hitching a thumb over his shoulder at the giggling group. "They're just nasty bitches!" he said more loudly, sure they would hear and glad when their grins turned to frowns of shock and distaste.

Parker couldn't help but giggle herself. She always loved when Eliot put people down, be it with insults or punches. If she needed someone to look out for her, he was the one that was always there in her real life, and she figured that was why he was here now, in what had to be her high school fantasy, doing the exact same thing.

The bell ringing over their heads told both new and established student of the aptly named Leverage high school that they ought to be elsewhere. Unfortunately, Parker quickly realised she didn't know where it was she was meant to be. The way she started looking absently around the halls proved she was lost and Eliot seemed to immediately notice.

"C'mon, I'll show you where the office is so you can get your schedule," he offered, putting a hand to Parker's shoulder and guiding her down through the halls.

She went willingly and with a smile on her face that surprised even Parker herself when she caught sight of herself in the nearest reflective surface. This place was cool so far.

* * *

Nate felt physically nauseous as he walked into the hospital room and saw Parker lying motionless in the bed. As if hospitals weren't bad enough to deal with, bringing back a whole flood of memories largely featuring the illness and death of his son, seeing one so young and innocent in this state all over again, it was too much.

Such things were never said aloud, and yet Nate hoped that Parker knew how much she meant to each of them, to him in particular. He never had a daughter and was sure any child of his would never have turned out the way Parker had, and yet if he got to choose he would adopt the girl in an instant. She wasn't what the world would see as normal, but she was special, and not just because of her abilities as a thief.

There was such an innocence about her, especially when one considered her profession. She had nobody to care for so long, until the Leverage team had become her family. Some family, Nate realised, with a humourless laugh sounding off inside his head, they couldn't even make sure she ate and slept properly on their downtime. They had let this happen to her, this accident, this coma from which there was no guarantee she would wake.

"She'll be alright," Hardison intoned, over an over, presumably trying to convince himself more than anyone else that might hear, or perhaps it was a prayer to whatever God or higher power he believed would listen.

"Hey there, Parker," said Nate, deciding against his own better judgement to make an effort to talk to her, though he was all but certain she could not hear. "Rise and shine, sleepyhead," he said with a crooked smile that didn't quite happen as his fingers ghosted past the bandage on her head and her pale cheek.

"She looks fine," the hacker shook his head, glancing at Nate from the other side of the bed. "It's crazy but she... she looks fine, 'cept for the bandage," he pointed out.

Any answer he might have given stuck in the mastermind's throat. This had all happened before, he had this conversation almost exactly. Sam looked fine, a little pale perhaps, but most of the time it was impossible to tell there was anything wrong with him, even as the cancer ate him up from the inside.

Nate couldn't handle this, he wanted to but he couldn't, and was out of the door before Hardison ever had a chance to turn around. Outside in the hall, he bent over double, trying to remind himself how to breathe. The sound of heeled shoes against the tiled floor were barely audible inside his distracted head, and then suddenly he saw shoes he recognised and looked up.

"I know this is hard for you," said Sophie, putting a hand to his shoulder.

"Not as hard as it is for Parker," he said guiltily, feeling stupid for being so weak but unable to help it. "Oh, Sophie, what have I done? I should've been taking better care, I... I get so distracted by the con..."

"Nate, don't," the grifter told him sternly, catching his attention back from the window to Parker's room in an instant. "You cannot blame yourself for this," she told him, her hands at his face to keep him looking at her. "We all care about Parker, but she is a grown woman and we can't be held responsible for everything that happens to her."

Nate knew she was right, he had said a very similar thing not long ago. Out of everyone, Eliot seemed to feel the most guilty, the most shaken up by Parker's accident, which was surprising. They expected Hardison to react badly, his crush on the little thief had been obvious from Day One, but the hitter hardly ever showed emotion. The fact he was now made Nate all the more curious about the attachment between the two unlikely friends.

"Where's Eliot?" he asked Sophie then, looking up and down the corridor and realising he wasn't around.

"I don't know," she admitted. "He's really freaked out about what happened, more than I ever saw before," she sighed, pushing a hand through her hair. "He's our protector, Nate, that's how he sees himself, and for this to happen..." she gestured towards Parker's room. "He feels guilty too."

When Nate met Sophie's eyes then he saw so much emotion. She was one of the strongest women he had ever met, and the fact she was standing here now, still seeming so together was amazing to him. Any name she chose, any persona she stepped into, Sophie was the greatest grifter in the world, as far as Nate knew, and yet her eyes always gave her away to him. She was as scared as anyone right now, and feeling a little of that guilt that was going around. Parker was her only girl-friend in the team, a little sister and a protege all in one. If anything happened to her, if she didn't make it, it wasn't just Nate or Eliot or Hardison that would suffer, it was the whole team. Chances were good that it would be enough to tear them apart.

"It's gonna be okay," he said, with as much confidence as he could muster though he felt very little of it as he pulled Sophie into his arms and held on tight.

Inside Nate was saying a silent prayer, not to God so much as to Parker herself, willing her with all he had to pull through this and come back to them. There was little else any of them could do right now.

* * *

In no time at all, Parker was stood at the front desk whilst a helpful administrator looked for the paperwork she needed as a new student in the Junior grade at Leverage High.

"I gotta go," Eliot told her then, the second bell signalling he ought to be in class, "but maybe I'll see you around." He smiled that special rare smile that Parker always loved to see as he walked away with an absent wave in her direction.

No sooner was he gone than the blonde turned around to the sound of a familiar English accent. As expected, Sophie appeared to be exiting the Principal's office, though much like Parker and Eliot, she looked the right age for high school.

"And you see, sir, it really wasn't our fault at all," the apparently teenage grifter explained. "It's all such a misunderstanding."

"Absolutely, Miss Devereaux." The Principal seemed to be agreeing with her as he followed her out, a teenage boy hovering behind them that Parker couldn't see yet. "We'll say no more about the whole sorry business," he assured her as he sent both Sophie and the boy on their way.

Parker craned her neck to see who the guy was and couldn't help but chuckle when she realised it was Nate, dressed similarly to how he had been at the school reunion they all attended for their last con. At first she thought it was cool that Nate and Sophie were friends here, just as they were in real life, and yet she soon realised she was wrong as the grifter walked away with her head held high, not even sparing the guy a second glance, as he sighed and trailed behind her with a true expression of longing.

"Hello? Anybody home?" Parker's attention snapped back to the woman behind the desk as her schedule, map, and such were waved in her face. "Here you go, sweet-cheeks. Have a nice day".

After a moment of initial confusion, Parker figured out where she was going, not at all phased by the fact she had an algebra class to attend. She could make sense out of numbers, they all had their places and they didn't change unless you asked them to. She could figure out problems pretty fast in her head and never had worried about not having a calculator. Yep, math was cool, and she was pleased enough to be taking a class in it, as evidenced by the way she skipped down the hall to the relevant room with a smile on her face.

Parker did wonder why she was the only student that seemed happy to be here, but not for long as she spoke to the teacher and was sent to the only empty seat in the room. She smiled as she claimed her desk, right next to another familiar face that was smiling widely at her.

"Hey." She grinned back at Hardison, remembering that he probably wouldn't know her here yet since Eliot hadn't. "I'm Parker."

"Alec Hardison," he replied, taking the hand she offered him to shake. "And it is a pleasure to meet you," he told her with evident enthusiasm.

"Cool," she nodded, opening her mouth to say more and yet never getting the chance.

"Oh, great," said the bitchy girl that Parker recognised easily from their run-in in the halls. "It's Eliot Spencer's damsel in distress," she sneered as the blonde glanced at her.

"Eliot...? You and...?" Hardison stammered badly. "You're friends with that guy?" he asked Parker, who only shrugged in response since she didn't see what the big deal was.

The class was called to order then and all students looked to the front as the teacher began to explain what was going to be taught this year. The smile on Parker's face only grew. Algebra was such a breeze - this stuff was so easy! She was going to rock at the high school thing!


	4. Chapter 4

Parker had a grin on her face a mile wide as she and Hardison headed down the hall to lunch. They had a couple of the same classes and he had offered to meet her outside her home room before lunch to walk her down to the cafeteria, since she was the new girl and all.

It was so cool for her to have her friends here with her as she experienced High School for the first time in her life. Sure, they didn't know her like they did in what she presumed to be the real world or whatever, but this was still cool. Hardison seemed to be exactly as she knew him, rambling on about sci-fi movies and video games and all. Parker could hear him, but she wasn't entirely listening. There was too much to see here, too much to take in, and many a face she was suddenly able to identify. That was curious to the blonde, how the people passing her in the halls suddenly seemed to take shape and develop faces she recognised. There were kids she was fostered with, others she recalled from her time spent on the streets and in gangs. None of them seemed to know her here, just the same as her team were oblivious until she introduced herself. Still it was oddly comforting that everyone was so familiar, even if some of that familiarity evoked bad memories and feelings.

"Parker?" Her name being spoken caught her attention and she realised she and Hardison were now stood outside the cafeteria door.

"Hmm, what?" she checked, realising as she looked at him then that she hadn't heard a word he'd said for fully five minutes. "Where's the food?" she asked, pushing the door open and heading in.

Hardison stared behind her a moment before following, concentrating a little too much on the female form in front of him. It was no surprise that his not looking where he was really going led to him running into somebody. A tray full of food flew into the air and landed with a crash on the ground, catching rather too much attention. Usually there would be applause and laughter at the accident and mess made, but nobody was willing to risk it when they realised whose tray Alec Hardison had sent flying.

Parker turned around with astonishment, realising it was her two favourite guys now facing off with each other over an upset plate of spaghetti and literally spilled milk.

"You messed with the wrong person," said Eliot in a low voice, reaching to grab Hardison by the shirt.

"Hey, man, I'm sorry!" the younger version of the hacker immediately apologised. "Really, I wasn't... I didn't..."

"Hey!" Parker called, getting both their attention at once.

Immediately there was manic whispering amongst all her peers about the new girl being potentially suicidal, getting in the middle of Eliot Spencer and his own brand of punishment. Others said there was no need to worry, he'd been seen talking to Leverage High's newest Junior just this morning. Apparently a school gossip system was the fastest way to get any piece of information around a thousand people or more without even breaking a sweat!

"Parker" said Eliot, his angry growling expression giving way to an odd smile as he looked across at her. "Er... this guy a friend of yours?" he checked, pulling Hardison up a little further by his clothes.

"Yeah, I guess." She shrugged in response. "You don't want to hit him, right?"

Whether or not she was asking it as a serious question or advising Eliot it was maybe a bad idea for some reason wasn't really clear. Still, the so-called jock let go of the geek then, helping him straighten out his shirt, and leaning in close to whisper threateningly in his ear.

"You got a pass, this time," he told him, "but you do something dumb like that again, well, you need those fingers to type on your little keyboard, don'tcha, son?" he said with a knowing look, before finally letting Hardison be.

It seemed to bother the hacker that Eliot had paid enough attention to him to know he was a computer geek and all. Still, he was grateful to still have all his fingers in one piece right now, and very, very grateful to Parker for not letting anything happen to him.

"Okay, so now you two are done being all... fighty," she mimed what appeared to be people punching each other as the two guys turned to look at her. "We can eat together now, right?" she asked, in all innocence.

It clearly came as a surprise to her two friends that she was making such a suggestion after what had just happened. In the real world, they were used to this wacky behaviour from her, whilst here they didn't know her so well. Still, they seemed willing to accept her idea, much to the surprise of many an onlooker that Parker refused to pay any mind to. Stepping in between the younger versions of her two team-mates, the blonde eagerly swung an arm around each of their shoulders and encouraged them towards the line to get some lunch, or in Eliot's case, some more lunch after the spilling incident.

Parker happily filled her plate with junk, unsurprised by Eliot's far healthier choices or the two bottles of orange soda Hardison added to his tray. Their food chosen and paid for, they headed for a table. Parker led the way, and automatically went for the mostly empty table with just younger-version Nate sat at one end. Sitting down on one side of the table, she smiled overly much at the guy who was the mastermind of their team in reality. Hardison got a smug grin on his face as he got the chair next to Parker, though Eliot didn't react, just taking his seat opposite her instead.

"Hey, I'm Parker," she introduced herself to Nate.

"I know." He nodded, though he barely glanced at her or even the food he was supposed to be eating, his attention fully taken by whatever was happening at the next table over.

Parker followed his gaze and wasn't at all surprised to see Sophie holding court over a group of what seemed to be the popular kids. Boys and girls she had known from foster homes and other crews she'd run with, all the prettiest girls and cutest boys, all the people who had gotten treated better and such, and Parker hated each and every one of them just for that. All except Sophie, she could never hate Sophie, but she did have some envy for the woman who could so easily charm everyone who came her way. Parker was way too awkward to be like her, and she knew it too.

"That's Sophie Devereaux," said Hardison, assuming Parker didn't know. "She's kinda the Queen Bee around here, but not half so stuck up as she seems" he confirmed.

"She's not at all stuck up," Nate cut in crossly. "She's just, well, she's special."

"Yeah, real special." Eliot rolled his eyes, getting everyone's attention. "What? I just don't like users, okay?"

"Users?" echoed Parker, looking from hitter to mastermind with confusion.

"She's not..." began Nate only for Eliot to cut in.

"Yeah, man, she is," he assured them all. "She gets what she can from fluttering her eyelashes and shaking her ass," he told them easily. "Not that she's not a good person, 'cause in a lot of ways she is, but she knows a little too well how hot she is and how persuasive she can be," he told them, as if speaking from experience.

Parker almost didn't want him to elaborate somehow, and it certainly looked as if Nate didn't. Poor Nate, he was so in love with Sophie, even Parker knew that and she was hardly good at reading people or understanding their feelings. In High School, as in the real world, he was destined to love this woman, not knowing how to deal with it and somehow always watching from afar as she charmed the world around her so easily. Parker sighed heavily at her own thoughts, thinking on how sad the whole situation really was.

"You okay?" checked Hardison with obvious concern at how upset she seemed suddenly.

"Sure, yeah." She shrugged off his concern as she picked up a fork and stabbed at the food she wasn't sure she wanted to eat. "I just wish..."

"Well, what do we have here?" said a familiar English voice over her shoulder.

Parker peered up at Sophie with an expression akin to a landed fish. She was just about to say she wished that they were all friends like before she fell into High School, and here was the missing person, right here at their table. It was like magic, and Parker liked magic, even when she failed to figure out how it was done, which wasn't often. This dream-like fantasy-reality she was having certainly seemed magical to her, and she liked it a lot if wishing really did make things happen.

"I wish I had a big pile of money," she said softly to herself then, eyes tightly shut.

She was somewhat disappointed to open them and find nothing on the table before her but the lunch she didn't really want most of.

Blowing her hair out of her eyes, she picked up her bag of potato chips and squeezed it til it burst open with a bang that clearly startled Sophie from the conversation she was starting up with Eliot.

"Blimey!" she reacted with surprise. "What did you do that for?"

Parker only shrugged in response as Eliot told the younger version of the grifter who the new girl was. To her credit, Sophie did extend a hand of greeting and smiled nicely enough. She clearly wasn't as stuck up as she might've seemed from afar, a little more the kind older sister figure Parker knew in the real world. That made her happier, as she munched on her chips with a smile.

"So, you being over here at this table?" she said, turning her attention back to Eliot, her hands now firmly on her hips. "Some sort of statement, I'm assuming?"

"No, Soph, no statement." Eliot rolled his eyes, leaning back heavily in his seat. "I'm just eating with Parker because she's new here and it seemed like a decent thing to do," he told her, like he was tired of explaining himself.

Parker watched the conversation with interest and a genuine smile. The dynamic between Sophie and Eliot always entertained her. They both had very strong opinions on things and whilst some were the same, some were decidedly opposite. They were friends to the death and understood each other in a way Parker was sure she'd never understand anyone, but they didn't seem at all attracted to each other, not in the way Nate and Sophie were. Plus, in reality, Parker was pretty sure the hitter never entirely forgave the grifter for conning her own team back in LA.

"Alright, I'll give you that," Sophie agreed, "but the Home Ec classes? That has to be making a point about something, surely?"

Parker couldn't help but laugh then, not at the prospect of Eliot in a cookery class because that made total sense to her, given his love of being in the kitchen. What she actually found so amusing was the stream of orange soda shooting out of Hardison's nose all over the table. Sure, it was a little gross, but it was also hilariously funny.

"Do that again!" she chuckled heartily, as even Nate had to stifle a laugh behind his hand to save from causing offence.

"Sophie, if you don't understand my choices, that's fine," he told her, choosing to ignore the giggling around him before he launched someone clean out of the window for daring to find him amusing, "but I'm not gonna sit here and explain them to ya. I'm trying to have a nice quiet lunch with my friend here," he said, gesturing towards Parker alone and making very sure to use the singular of the word rather than the plural.

Nate and Hardison knew better than to even pretend to be offended.

"Aaw, that's so sweet," enthused Parker. "I'm his friend," she told Hardison with a giggle as she hummed a little tune to herself and continued to munch on her chips.

"You might also be crazy," noted Eliot with an expression she couldn't read, but at this point, Parker was totally used to that kind of thing and didn't even bat an eye.

She was here with her team, experiencing High School, which so far was a total breeze. Life was good, and if this really was to be her life from now on, she could totally deal with staying forever.

* * *

"I'm afraid it's not good news," said Dr Sheppard as he faced Nate and Sophie in the hospital Waiting Room.

Hardison had gone for snacks he wasn't sure anyone would be able to eat, whilst Eliot still hadn't returned from wherever he disappeared to hours before. He wasn't answering comms or his cell, which concerned the others, but right now Parker was the priority.

"Is she getting worse?" asked Sophie, with a break in her voice that even the talented grifter could not disguise in such a situation.

"No, not worse exactly," the doctor confirmed. "Her injuries are healing, all scans show that she is going to be just fine in a physical sense."

"But?" prompted Nate, knowing there had to be one, there always was, especially when it came to doctors and hospitals.

"Well, as you know, we were hoping for some kind of reaction before now," Dr Sheppard explained. "I'm afraid we have been forced to declare your daughter comatose given the length of time she has been unconscious. At this point, there is nothing we can do but wait until she wakes up."

"But she will wake up, won't she?" checked Sophie, physically shaking beneath the arm Nate had wrapped around her shoulders.

The way the doctor looked away was not an encouraging sign, and yet both of them waited for him to verbally answer before they reacted at all.

"At this point, there's still a chance," the doctor confirmed, "but I do have to warn you that when she does wake... well, there are a number of possibilities even then. It's impossible for us to know what damage might have been done on a cerebral level until she regains consciousness and tells us herself."

"Damage?" squeaked Sophie, with evident alarm. "What damage?" she asked, almost wishing she hadn't, as a tear ran down her cheek unchecked.

The doctor opened his mouth to answer but never got the chance as a voice was heard from the door behind him.

"Amnesia, black outs, psychosis... or worse."

The words rattled out of Eliot like bullets out of a gun, each one hitting his friends in the chest and almost physically making them step back from the force. He didn't relish telling them, but he hadn't been able to help what was already running through his head come out of his mouth unfiltered. He was usually more careful, but then this wasn't a normal situation, and evidence suggested it might never be again.


	5. Chapter 5

Parker was grinning like an idiot as she hurried home from school. Archie had sent her a text message to say he could pick her up if she wanted but she had declined, quite happy to find her own way and explore this town she had landed up in, complete with father-figure and high school experience built in. As far as Parker was concerned there really was no bad here. The grocery store she passed by was having a half-off sale on all her favourite cereals, the jewellery store down the street appeared to have very lax security and would be great for practising her skills on, and every person she saw was another face from the past to recall.

Swinging in through the back door of a house she could call her own, Parker came upon Archie sat in his armchair, reading the newspaper. He looked up at her as she entered and greeted her with a smile almost as wide as her own.

"I take it the first day was a success?" he checked, folding up his paper and dropping it down on the coffee table.

"I love high school," responded Parker with glee, as she dropped her book bag down on the carpet and hopped up into the next chair over, legs crossed underneath her. "I have all my friends there and it's just awesome."

"You made friends already?" her father-figure seemed both impressed by that and interested in hearing more.

"Yup," she told him, popping the p. "Eliot, and Hardison, and Nate, and Sophie," she rattled off happily.

Archie chuckled at her enthusiasm, only glad to see her so happy apparently. Parker honestly thought she couldn't be any more pleased with the way life was here, she hadn't even got the urge to go stealing anything to make it better. It would seem they had plenty of money given all the stuff they had and the size of the house that was for just the two of them. Saying that, the door opening and closing behind her made Parker think maybe she had missed an extra person living here this morning.

Jumping up from her seat fast, just in case it was a bad person creeping up on her, Parker was stunned by the sight that met her eyes. Coming in through the door, skateboard in hand and just exactly as she remembered him, was one of her old foster-brothers. That wouldn't be such a strange thing perhaps, given all the others she'd seen since she got here, but Frankie was dead in the real world. She knew because she was there when it happened, and had carried the guilt of it for years believing she should have taken better care.

"Hey," he greeted her then, with a smile that faltered when he registered tears welling in big sister's eyes. "What's the matter with you?" he checked. "Did the people at the new school make fun of you for being crazy?" he asked her, a little joke that didn't quite land, mostly because Parker wasn't listening.

"What's wrong, kiddo?" Archie checked when the blonde failed to answer the question from her kid brother.

"I don't..." she started, giving up entirely when her voice wavered.

She launched herself towards Frankie then, grabbing him in a huge bear hug that caused him to drop both bag and skateboard with surprise. He hugged her back, but was soon wanting to be released, squirming awkwardly against the huge amount of sisterly affection he was suddenly being shown. Young boys were rarely a fan of such things, but then that probably wouldn't occur to Parker anyway.

"Really, Parker," her 'father' laughed lightly as he got to his feet. "I know you didn't see your brother this morning, but you can't have missed him all this much."

"I really have," she whispered as she finally let up her hold on Frankie only so she could better look at him. "I'm so sorry," she told him then, perhaps too seriously, though the boy shrugged it off.

"Whatever," he told her, presuming her apology was only for being such an embarrassing freak of a sister.

"Go and make a start on your homework, you two," Archie advised on his way to the kitchen. "Dinner will be about an hour."

Parker heard him and almost took in the words, though her eyes stayed glued to Frankie as he bolted up the stairs to his room, letting the door slam shut as he barrelled on in there. She almost couldn't believe it, but having him here as her little brother was just the icing on this delicious cake that was her new life. She practically skipped up the stairs to her own room, throwing herself onto the bed with a giggle akin to a much younger child than even she appeared.

Sixteen years old again, but with none of the troubles she had endured the first time around. A father who loved her and a little brother she adored. Attending high school with friends she looked to like family. It was like heaven for Parker, at least until that thought crossed her mind all too literally.

The blonde sat bolt upright on her bed then, observing her own panicked expression in the vanity mirror.

"Is this Heaven?" she asked her reflection with a frown, cocking her head to one side as she thought on it.

In some ways it made sense. The last thing she remembered was crashing the car, and people did die in car wrecks. Plus Frankie was dead and he was here, and Archie, well, she wasn't sure about him. She hoped he was still alive and yet she hadn't heard from him in so long, and he was kind of old…

"That's silly," she said to herself then, shaking her head as she realised how foolish she was being.

The team were all here. Eliot and Hardison and Sophie and Nate. They hadn't been in the car when she crashed, they were at the apartment, all safe and warm. Sure, their jobs were dangerous, but they had to still be alive, surely. On top of that, there were people here she was sure wouldn't ever get a place beyond the pearly gates. She sometimes wondered if she would, though it wasn't a topic Parker ever dwelt on much.

"And if this was Heaven, God would have been at the door to welcome me, right?" she said to herself, quite definitely deciding she wasn't actually in Heaven.

In which case it seemed like a dream had brought her here. That would make sense if not for the fact she had woken up into this place, and had spent all day at high school without coming out of her dream. She had never slept more than twelve hours together, not even after the most draining of cons, and yet her watch told her she had been here almost that long.

It bothered Parker to think that she might go to bed tonight and wake up back where she started. Not that she minded her real life, in fact she kind of loved it most of the time, otherwise she wouldn't stick at the whole Leverage team thing. Still, this was good too, reliving her life from sixteen onwards, with all the things she ever wanted – a proper high school experience, a family, and friends. Okay, so there were people here she didn't like so much, but they hadn't given her too much trouble and she had support here, people to watch her back, so she didn't have to worry.

For as long as she could stay here, Parker fully intended to do so. She looked good at sixteen, she realised, as she made faces in the mirror. Equally as pretty as the girls she'd seen in so many high school movies recently. Usually blondes like her were cheerleaders, she seemed to recall. Did she want to be a cheerleader? Parker wasn't sure, but it was something to think about. She wanted to do as much as she could in this new high school experience, just in case she woke up one morning to find the whole thing had faded away to nothing just as quickly as it had appeared.

* * *

"There's gotta be something they can do for her!" said Hardison desperately as he paced the floor of the apartment/office.

The team had decided that since Parker's condition was to be long term it would be impractical and somewhat ridiculous for them all to stay at the hospital 24/7. The doctors had Nate's number and were under strict instruction to call the very second there was any change, whilst the members of the Leverage crew pledged to visit each and every day no matter what. In point of fact, Eliot had been left watching over their girl for now, whilst the others went back to their base to get some rest and food and such. Not that anybody felt like eating or sleeping, only wanting to help Parker any way they could.

"I wish there were something," said Sophie from her seat by the counter, "but if the doctor's are at a loss..."

"Then we find something they didn't!" the hacker said with determination, stopping his pacing right by her and ramming his index finger into the counter top as he hammered his point home. "We pick up where everybody else leaves off, we're smarter than these people, we can do this..."

"No!" one word from Nate cut through the younger man's ramblings in a second. "Hardison, that's enough," he said more reasonably, though his tone was still stern and fatherly.

He wanted to help Parker as much as anybody else, perhaps even more in some ways. Saving her couldn't make up for not being able to save his own son, but in some tiny way it might help ease his conscience. Though a thief, the little blonde they had all come to love was equally as innocent as a child in the strangest of ways. She did not deserve to die, or to suffer at all.

Hardison made a reasonable point about them often doing the impossible, but even this team were not miracle workers. They didn't know better than highly trained doctors and nurses. They had no magic wands or spells to make everything okay so easily.

"All we can really do is be there for Parker as much as possible," said Sophie gently, putting a hand over Hardison's own on the counter. "We can hope, and pray if you want to," she told him, "but that's all I'm afraid."

It didn't seem like much, hardly anything at all, not nearly enough effort, but the grifter was right. There really wasn't anything else to be done right now, and it was killing each one of them to know it. That included Eliot, who was sat by Parker's hospital bed right now, feeling as nauseous as he had the first moment he walked in here last night.

Thirty minutes had passed since he sat down in this chair and yet he still hadn't muttered a word. He was hypnotised by the steady rise and fall of her chest, locked in on the constant beeping of the heart monitor. Everything important was functioning, from heart to lungs, the whole deal, but the brain could not be second guessed and if it said you weren't waking up then you weren't.

"Hey, Parker," said Eliot eventually, clearing his throat before continuing. "I, er, I'm sorry I took off before," he apologised, trying not to focus on how dumb he felt talking to a comatose woman as he picked up her pale hand in his and held it tight. "I don't even know for sure that you can hear me," he sighed. "The Docs say maybe but, I'm guessin' they never had much in the way of concussions themselves." He shook his head, the very same that had suffered few more blows than maybe it should have over the years. "Darlin', I am so, so sorry," he told her then, "I'm supposed to protect the team, protect you, and I let this happen..."

He stopped talking then, words escaping him, the urge to hit something just overwhelming. The frustration at himself for allowing her to get hurt was enormous, as well as the frustration at Parker for not waking up, and at the Doctors for not being able to help her more. It was all pointless and fruitless and it was what had caused him to bolt in the first place. The pain and the guilt mixed in was too much to bear and there was no-one to blame, no-one to go and make pay for what had happened here. If Eliot could beat up on himself right now, he probably would, even if it'd do no good in the long run. It all sounded crazy, even in his own head, and that thought alone made him smile. Crazy was Parker and vice versa, but in the best of ways, in ways that only she could be, and ways that he loved but would probably never say so.

"Y'know, right now I would give anything to have you open those baby blues of yours and look at me, darlin'," Eliot told Parker with a crooked smile. "I honestly wouldn't mind if you wanted to toss me off a building with you, or braid my hair, or any other crazy ass thing you ask me," he told her. "I just... I don't know how to be on this team without you here," he said, as honestly as he ever said anything, perhaps even surprising himself with the truth that fell from his lips.

Eliot knew he cared for his crew, every single one of them, but perhaps he never had a mind to think too much on how attached he and Parker had become. Thinking on it now hurt him, somewhere deep inside that he couldn't cure with an ice pack or an aspirin. This ache wasn't going to go away until she woke up and returned to being Parker, as opposed to the too quiet, too still being that was laid before him now.

"Can you hear me, Parker?" he asked her, knowing full well she wouldn't answer.

All she did was sleep on, like a fallen angel, ethereal and beautiful in slumber. Though he wasn't sure that God could hear him either, or would bother to listen if he could given all Eliot had done in his life, he still prayed that this woman he cared so much about was not taken away to become a real angel too soon. Lord, he needed her in his life longer than this, and had hardly known it until it seemed possibly too late.


	6. Chapter 6

Parker skipped her way to school with a smile on her face a mile wide. She wasn't in the least bothered by the strange looks she got from various passers-by, she was thrilled to wake up in this world this morning, after so many worries that she might not. The jangle of the alarm clock brought her out of her slumber, the smell of bacon hitting her nose as she sat up and looked around at her very own room, just like the day before.

Archie had commented on her strange enthusiasm for life and for school when she came pelting down the stairs, hugging him tight from behind as he served up breakfast. She kissed him squarely on the cheek and explained that she was just happy, something her father figure seemed pleased enough to hear. Even Frankie accepted a hug from his sister without complaint, only laughter as he said she must be on happy pills or something.

That had stopped Parker in her tracks for a moment. The remark reminded her of Eliot, when he blamed her extra wacky behaviour one time on the drugs she had been fed at a rehab facility. Eliot was in her dream last night, a very vivid dream that she had forgotten at first but then hit her full force in a moment as she recalled it.

Both Archie and Frankie had worried about her when she turned quite pale and sank down onto a stool by the kitchen counter.

"Hey, easy there, kiddo," her father figure had told her. "All this running around before you had your breakfast is doing you no good," he said, pushing her bacon and eggs towards her and encouraging her to eat.

Conversation had moved on, Parker's brain unscrambled for the most part, and she was back to being happier than most teens were at the prospect of a school day. She had waved goodbye as she set off a while later, looking back at Frankie as he navigated the roads on his skateboard, headed off to Junior High. She couldn't help the niggling worry about him going alone like that, a normal sort of reaction, she guessed, given what happened to him before.

Reaching the High School, she hurried up the steps, almost running smack bang into Sophie who was hovering there, talking animatedly on her cell.

"Don't forget I need a copy of that for my reel, okay?" she was saying to whoever was on the other end of the line. "Okay then, sweetie. Bye-bye!"

She closed up the phone with an audible snap and a smile on her face as she turned to face Parker and the two greeted each other.

"Who was that?" asked the blonde curiously, gesturing to the cell in Sophie's hand still.

"My agent," she answered proudly. "Well, kind of... He's helping me with my career," she said awkwardly. "I'm an actress." She smiled then, serious and confident as ever in that particular regard.

"Cool," Parker replied with a nod of her head.

She vaguely wondered how good Sophie's acting was in this world. Perhaps as good as she was on the grift, or scarily bad as her actual acting in plays was. Parker's expression must have shifted to fear and disgust without her noticing because when she met Sophie's gaze then she realised the brunette was looking at her as if she had three heads. She immediately put on a smile.

"So, um, we should probably go inside, right?" she said, heading into the building, not sure whether Sophie would follow or not.

She did walk with her, and they strode down the corridor together, getting a few strange looks from passers-by. Parker was used to that already and it seemed Sophie was too, though perhaps for different reasons. Several of the pretty girls and cute guys said 'hello' to Sophie as they wandered by, but her companion really didn't take much notice.

"Do you have any extracurricular activities, Parker?" she asked her and the blonde opened her mouth to answer then shut it again fast.

The obvious answer was thievery, safe cracking, and rappelling, but none of that would make any sense here in this world, she supposed. A search of her room had turned up a set of picks and a harness, but Parker still wasn't so sure she should talk about it outside of her house. Up to now, nobody had mentioned that kind of thing at all.

"Um, I'm... I like gymnastics," she said eventually, recalling her moves being called that on more than one occasion, as well as knowing it was something girls did for fun sometimes.

As if on cue she spotted a poster pinned to the nearest cork-board that fit the bill then and Parker grinned.

"Maybe I could be a cheerleader." She shrugged, not really thinking much about the reaction she would get from Sophie as she pointed to the brightly painted sign.

The look on the young actresses face was a picture when Parker glanced her way and she immediately wished she hadn't spoken. She really didn't want to ruin this dream-like world she had dropped into and upsetting Sophie seemed like a sure fire way for things to get screwed up. What if she left this place, just like she left the team before?

"Well, can't say as I like them much," she said haughtily as she peered down her nose at the poster, "but perhaps you could be the first non-bitchy cheerleader here at Leverage High," she shrugged, pulling the piece of paper from the wall and placing it into Parker's hands.

"Hmm, maybe," said Parker thoughtfully as she re-read the poster.

She could be a cheerleader, it might even be fun. She liked to dance, she liked gymnastics. Bending and jumping and all, it was easy enough. Plus she'd get a cute uniform and she liked uniforms. The cheerleaders in High School movies seemed to be the happiest of all the people, she reckoned.

Parker barely noticed Sophie wandering away, just heard her muttering about getting to class as the bell rung overhead. She only glanced up when she realised she was gone and people were moving around a lot, headed to their classes before they got in trouble for loitering and such. Folding up the poster to push into her bag, Parker's eyes caught sight of Eliot across the hall, sharing fist bumps and back slaps with his fellow jocks as they all parted ways.

The sight of Eliot brought back memories of the dream she had last night, in which he featured more than anybody else. He was talking to her in a very serious way, so intense she could almost feel the words. He kept apologising to her, over and over, but for the life of her Parker couldn't have said what it was he was so sorry for. Eliot never hurt her, not ever. Sure, he said some things that other people might think were mean, but less so these days, and she never took it to heart anyway. He didn't mean any harm, he always took care of her, looked out for her. She couldn't think of a single thing he would need to be sorry about in the world she used to live in, and certainly not in this new world where he had been nothing but a new and good friend.

Shaking off her thoughts to the sound of the second bell, Parker bolted off to her own first class before she found herself in detention. Today was only her second day at Leverage High School, and she didn't want to screw it up. Besides, if she had to stay after school because she was in trouble, she couldn't go to cheerleader try-outs, and that was surely going to be too much fun to miss!

* * *

Parker wasn't sure what she expected when she showed up to cheerleading practise after school. The gym looked huge with just a couple of dozen people at one end of it. She knew the girls in uniform were the head cheerleader and her friends, some of which looked like girls she recalled being friendly and others that she didn't like at all. The downside to this whole plan was that one of the cheerleaders appeared to be the very same bitchy girl that had made fun of Parker and tripped her in the hall on her first day. The same one Eliot had pretty much told to go to hell. Well, at least that particular thought was enough to bring a smile to the blonde's lips.

"We here for you, girl, no panic," said Hardison as he patted her on the shoulder in a friendly way then walked away up into the stands to take a seat.

"Absolutely," said Sophie solidly as she held her head high. "Though why anyone wants to be one of them is beyond me," she muttered, going to sit down herself.

"You'll do great," threw in Nate as he followed behind the brunette, promising her she was so much better than all those other girls, despite the fact she felt she knew that already.

"Okay then," said Parker to herself, taking a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."

With her head held high, she walked over to join the small group of other girls who were also trying out to be Leverage High's newest cheerleader. Most were blonde and pretty, but in that respect Parker figured she measured up. What mattered was whether or not she had the moves and she was pretty sure she did. She had seen those movies, all the jumping and arm-waving that went on, it seemed pretty simple. She had no fear of being lifted up in the air, so long as she didn't have to be touched too much. She was sure it would be fine...

"Okay, girls," said the head cheerleader, thankfully not one of the bitches that had been so mean to Parker yesterday but a sweet looking red-head that she couldn't quite place. "Line up and we'll see what we have here."

With all the wannabe cheerleaders lined up, they were soon being shown various flips and high kicks that they were called upon to copy. Parker almost laughed at how easy the task was, and ended up putting her own tricks and flair into it when her turn came. Many of the other girls seemed impressed, some vaguely jealous, but she just ignored them. She had her focus and she was sticking to it, at least at first.

Soon the group of girls wishing to join the squad was whittled down to less than half and Parker remained in the group of possible candidates. Before long, music began pounding through the stereo and one of the current cheerleaders showed off a routine, all arm movements, foot stomps, and such. Focused on what she was doing, Parker ought to be fine with it, but co-ordination was really only her thing when she was working. This was different, it was close to dancing, and that wasn't so much her strong point, especially if she thought about it too much and stressed on it. She really wasn't doing so well right now and feared the tap on her shoulder that would mean she had to go.

"Woohoo! Shake it, ladies!" a call suddenly came from the corner of the room, disrupting the whole audition process.

Parker turned to peer over her shoulder and got a hard look in her eyes. She recognised the guy in the letter jacket, though he hadn't looked so good last she saw him. His name was Kelly and she knew him on the streets when she was even younger than they both appeared now. In this world, he was a jock and a possible friend of Eliot, at least it seemed that way until the younger version of the hitter suddenly slugged Kelly in the shoulder.

"Have some respect, man!" he yelled at him for being so coarse, making some of the girls giggle and others sigh.

Kelly walked out after that, a couple of the other guys following him, whilst various others headed for the bleachers to watch the try-outs quietly apparently. Parker didn't even think about what she was doing as she waved to the guy she called a friend, feeling strangely girly when Eliot raised a hand in response. She could see him smiling from here and it gave her the same warm feeling she got in the real world when he looked genuinely pleased about something she had done. It didn't happen very often, but she liked it when it did.

A moment later and her attention was called back to the front as auditions resumed. Parker's friends on the bleachers yelled encouragement until one of the cheerleaders insisted they were quiet, and between their support and Eliot's presence, Parker found more confidence in herself to do this thing. The music began again and the wannabe cheerleaders showed what they could do. Within ten minutes everyone had been tapped on the shoulder to leave or just simply dropped out, all except one girl.

"Okay then," said the head cheerleader with a smile as she shut off the stereo. "Congratulations, sweetie, you just made cheer squad," she told Parker.

Bouncing up and down like Tigger on speed, Parker was stupidly elated that she passed this little test. Her friends seemed no less pleased for her as they ran down from their seats to offer hugs and congratulations. This felt so good, Parker couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere but here, amongst her team, being told she was awesome.

"We should go celebrate," suggested Hardison. "You don't gotta be home yet, right, mama?" he checked with Parker who shook her head.

"So long as I text Arc... my dad, it'll be fine," she told him, almost screwing up, though no-one seemed to notice.

"I know a place we can go," piped up Nate with a smile. "Half price soda and ice-cream sundaes?" he offered as an apparent incentive.

No-one seemed willing to argue with such an offer and so the group picked up their bags and headed out.

"How do you know about this place?" asked Sophie as they neared the door.

"It belongs to my uncle," Nate told her proudly. "That's why we'll get a discount there. Nobody else gets a discount at McRorys." He smiled wide.

"Man, I am all about the sugar high, and the cheaper it comes the better it works for me," enthused Hardison, looking to Parker for agreement, but she didn't seem to be paying attention anymore.

"Hey," she called to Eliot, getting his attention away from his other friends. "Aren't you coming? We're going to McRorys for soda and ice-cream," she told him easily.

"What are you, like, seven years old?" he checked though the would-be insult was in fact good-natured and said with a smile.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked, swinging in and out of the doorway by one arm as her friends waited in the hallway beyond.

"Sure, why not?" Eliot shrugged after a moments pause, following her out.

Yup, this was one of the best days ever for Parker.


	7. Chapter 7

It had been a week, a whole seven days, since Parker had left the Leverage base to drive home and never made it. In some ways it seemed much longer since the team's thief landed herself in a coma that didn't want to end, in the ways where her friends that felt like a family willed her day and night to come around, and sat by her bedside willing her to do so. On the other hand, there were times when it seemed ridiculous to think she had been in her deep sleep so long, seeming like only yesterday she was throwing non-sequitars through the earbuds on a con, or rustling around with her hand in a cereal packet when Nate or Hardison was trying to explain a plan.

They all missed her, every single member of the team felt her absence keenly, perhaps in an even worse way than when Sophie had walked away for a while. Sure, her being gone rocked the crew to its core, but they always held onto the hope she was coming home soon, that she could at least do that if she wanted to. It seemed that Parker's fight to get back to them would be decidedly more epic.

Eliot knew better than anyone that the longer this went on, the more the odds of her waking diminished. Parker was strong, no doubt, she wouldn't have survived to this age if she wasn't. After all that she'd been through over the years, she really didn't deserve to suffer anymore. Of course, in her deep sleep, the chances were good she felt no pain herself, that was at least some comfort. Instead it was the team who suffered her loss, that they all prayed would not be permanent.

Gathered here in McRorys, later in the evening, they were all attempting to drown their sorrows. One of them ought to be at the hospital at all times, or so they had originally thought, but sometimes being all together like this was what they really needed, knowing that support network was there.

For four people that had been quite the lone wolves in their work before, they had come to rely on each other so much, even Eliot who had vowed never to work with a team on more than one job, at least until he met these people. Now, he wasn't sure how he would've got through the last week without them, battling pain and guilt still over what had happened. Sophie in particular would keep telling him not to blame himself, and though he stopped talking about it to appease her, Eliot couldn't make the feeling go away completely.

"We have a job to do," said Nate too suddenly in the midst of three of his four thieves who had all been occupied by their own drinks and thoughts until he spoke.

"You picked up a new client? Now?" asked Sophie, understandably astonished as her team-mates were too.

"Nate, I don't think..." began Hardison but Nate waved his words away.

"I don't mean we have a specific job right now, like a specific person asking for help," he confirmed, looking round the table at each of them - grifter, hacker, and hitter, "but we have a job. This team has a purpose, that's what we started working together for, to help people."

"Yeah," nodded Eliot, "but we're not a whole team anymore, in case you forgot," he pointed out coolly.

Nate's hand slamming on the table made Sophie and Hardison jump, but Eliot never even flinched. His eyes remained trained on the mastermind's own, even as they flashed with anger and pain.

"Don't you dare accuse me of not caring about Parker," he told him in a low voice, both filled with anger and meant to be unheard by the other patrons of the bar. "Don't you dare!"

"Nobody would ever say that," Sophie insisted, looking between the two men. "We all care about her, of course we do, and nobody's saying any different."

There was silence a while then as all took in the concept of working without Parker. It seemed wrong on so many levels to even be thinking about such a thing. They barely functioned without Sophie and it taken the arrival of Tara and a few weeks practise to integrate her before things really ran smooth.

"How can we even do this without Parker?" asked Hardison then, whether to the team or just to himself, no-one was really sure.

Either way, nobody seemed willing or able to give an answer. It was almost like their lives before the team, all colliding in the worst way. Nate wanted a drink, pretty much all the time. Sophie wished she could run until she out-ran the pain. Hardison wanted a dark room to hide in, with sugary goodness and coding hacks to scramble his brain. Eliot just needed somebody, anybody to punch, over and over until there was nothing left of anything to hurt anymore. It wouldn't help, none of it would, and it was surprisingly the hitter that came up with the only possible step forward.

"We have to do this," he said, so suddenly in the quiet that he caught everyone else's attention immediately. "We gotta do our jobs, help people, just like we always do," he said, pointing his finger into the bar top as if it made his point more valid.

"Man, you just said..." began Hardison, only to find himself interrupted.

"For Parker," Eliot cut in immediately, with a look much less severe than he would usually cast the hacker's way when he was snapping at him. "She's a good person, Hardison, and you know it," he reminded him. "Crazy as a bucket full of frogs, but good," he added with a ghost of a smile that his brother returned, "and she would hate it if people weren't gettin' helped because of her."

"He's right." Sophie nodded, looking from the younger men and then to Nate. "You're both right, we have to do this," she agreed.

"It's what Parker'd want," Hardison threw in, bobbing his head in agreement too. "And what that woman wants, man, she always get."

With that agreed, Nate ordered a further round of drinks and looked between the faces of his gathered team with a smile that was only partially forced by now.

"So, to moving forward... for Parker's sake," he said, raising his glass in some kind of odd toast.

A beer bottle, a soda glass, a whiskey tumbler, and a wine glass came together in a series of clinks, before the four members of Team Leverage drank. It wasn't going to be the same, it couldn't possibly be, but they did have to try and continue their good works. It was doing nobody any favours if they didn't, including Parker.

* * *

It had been a week, a whole seven days, since Parker had left the Leverage base to drive home and never made it. In some ways it seemed much longer since the team's thief landed herself here in a high school world that she didn't want to end, in the ways where her friends that felt like a family helped her enjoy her experience so much, and she had Archie and Frankie to be her real family unit here. On the otherhand, there were times when it seemed ridiculous to think she had been here so long, seeming like only yesterday she was getting comments and growls from the team for throwing non-sequitars through the earbuds on a con, or rustling around with her hand in a cereal packet when Nate or Hardison was trying to explain a plan.

She didn't miss it too much. Parker was sure the team would be something she missed terribly if she had been here in this other world without them, but attending high school with their younger selves pleased her to no end. They were the best parts of themselves, as she was too. She didn't have to live on the street and be so tough or hard. Parker had a home and a family and friends here, she did well in her classes and enjoyed them all from math to art to gym. Then there was her cheerleading. Parker was in her element when she was at practice for the cheerleading squad, showing off her flips and spins, never fearing the landing as she threw herself from the top of the pyramid onto the mats below.

There were times when the nice girls from the squad would offer her to eat lunch with them, but Parker declined. She spent her lunchtimes with her friends, her team that wasn't exactly a crew here as they were in 'reality'. Eliot didn't seem to mind abandoning his Jock friends to sit at the table with Parker and Hardison, and Nate always came with Sophie who left the 'in' crowd to be with her new clique. It was all Parker wanted in a high school experience and she had it right here. She honestly never wanted to leave.

Straight from school, the gang headed to McRorys, not a pub that sold alcohol as it was in the world Parker knew before, but a kind of a cafe for the young people, where only soda and ice cream sundaes and such could be bought from the bar. It looked the same though, minus the booze, and Parker loved to hang out there with her friends, until she had to get home for dinner and homework.

Archie was always pleased to see her when she arrived home, always willing to give her a hug and ask her how her day had been. She and Frankie would share tales of their school day and she even helped him with his homework one night. It was so comfortable, so warm and perfect. Parker had spent so very long wishing for this life she now seemed to have, she couldn't imagine ever wanting to leave.

Of course, there were downsides. Everything had a catch to it and Parker had found two about this new world so far. First was the lack of crime. She didn't mind so much giving up being a thief in the sense of being a bad guy, since working with the Leverage crew meant she still got to rappel and safe-break and all. She never needed any of those skills here, and going through her locks with her pick set was only going to be entertaining for so long without a proper heist to attend.

The second problem with this near-perfect world was the dreams. Every night the most intense dreams filled Parker's head, the faces of her friends and their voices calling out to her. She never could make out what they were saying, not clearly anyway, but none of them seemed happy. They cried, not just Sophie who was prone to such emotional behaviour, but the guys too. Parker wasn't sure whether she wanted to ask why or not, but she never did, she just couldn't. Trapped in the nightmare, all she could do was suffer the pain that eradiated from the friends she cared so much about.

It wasn't as worrying for Parker as it might've been, after all, she was used to bad dreams, she'd suffered with them most of her life. At least when she woke here she was safe, no fear that she had woken up angry foster parents or drawn attention to herself on the dangerous streets. Here she had Archie to fuss over her, Frankie to look up to her, and then friends that were good as family to prove they were not suffering as her subconscious seemed to believe, but happy and enjoying a high school experience with her.

It seemed today was going to be no different as she walked up onto the front steps and found her friends all stood there, as if waiting for her. They smiled and greeted Parker happily as she arrived, though almost immediately Hardison and Eliot went back to bickering over something dumb. That made Parker smile all the wider, just because it was so normal somehow.

"Honestly, boys!" Sophie rolled her eyes as she muttered to her friend. "They're just so childish sometimes."

"Oh yeah," sighed Parker though it was all a bit of an act. "What are they even arguing about?" she checked, her eyes following back and forth as Eliot and Hardison continued in the same vain.

"Homecoming," Nate told her with an amused smirk as he followed the pair yelling back and forth. "Apparently, they both believe they could be Homecoming King if they put their minds to it."

"Oh," said Parker thoughtfully as she looked between them and then burst out in fits of giggles that were loud enough to catch everyone's attention.

"What up, girl?" asked Hardison as the blonde fell into a fit of hysterics.

It took a full five minutes before she seemed capable of speech and the others were all a little concerned. It wasn't entirely normal for a person to find something and nothing this funny. Hell, the girl couldn't breathe by the looks of her, a hand on Sophie's shoulder as she bent double with the force.

"There's something wrong with you," Eliot told the blonde as she attempted to right herself and almost stumbled right into him, though there was no real malice in his tone, just wonderment at her odd behaviour it seemed.

"Seriously?" she said as she got her giggles under control, looking pointedly at Eliot and then Hardison. "Something wrong with me? How about you?" she asked them. "First off, you two are arguing over a crown," she told them as she pointed between them, "which by the way you would both look dumb in, and second," she continued, missing their pissed expressions at that comment, "isn't Homecoming like a month away and so not a big deal?"

"Oh, sweetie!" Sophie practically erupted with shock, so much so anybody passing by might have thought the world was ending or someone was dying. "What kind of school did you go to before you came here?" she asked a baffled Parker who was long since done laughing. "Homecoming is a very big deal, its really second only to the Prom," she explained, with Nate nodding along in agreement. "What you wear, who you go with, it's a bloody minefield!" she declared, at which Parker started.

"Huh," she said with a shake of her head. "I had no idea."

Surely a school dance shouldn't be this big of a deal, and yet apparently that was exactly what it was. She had to admit, when she recalled those movies she'd been watching prior to landing here, the girls in particular had cared an awful lot about that kind of thing. Dresses and limos and dates weren't so much things that teenage Parker had ever considered. Back then she had been too busy worrying about where she would sleep tonight, what the best place to steal food from might be, and what new devices might be put on cars tomorrow making them harder to bust into.

"And I would not look dumb in a crown," Eliot insisted as she tuned back into the people around her, lost for a moment in memories that didn't belong in this world.

"Me either, nuh-uh," agreed Hardison, both boys with their arms folded across their chests when Parker looked their way. "I would rock that bejewelled piece o' headgear, don't even worry 'bout it."

"Oh, we're not worried," the jock beside him said with an annoying smirk of smile, "because you will never win Homecoming King," Eliot insisted. "Not while I'm at this school," he said before walking away.

Hardison started yelling behind him, though wasn't dumb enough to follow Eliot too closely as he strolled away. Sure, the two of them were learning to be cool with each other since this odd group of friends started hanging out together, but Hardison was still all too aware that this new 'friend' of his could beat his ass down with a pinky finger.

Parker sighed and rolled her eyes as the two argued at distance, then turned her attention back to Sophie who was reapplying lipstick in her compact.

"So, who's taking you to Homecoming?" she asked conversationally.

The young wannabe actress continued to practise her pout a few more seconds before putting the mirror away and answering her friend.

"Now that's the big question, isn't it?" she said, turning a moment to watch as Hardison walked behind Eliot, still throwing arguments at each other, and Nate dove in to play peace maker. "I mean, there are plenty of options, of course, but I don't want to decide too early and make a big mistake, y'know?" she shrugged easily.

"So, not Nate?" asked Parker, wondering if she was supposed to but then figuring what the hell?

"Me and Nate?" Sophie held back a chuckle as if the prospect of the two of them were laughable. "Well, that's just..." she began, only to stop short as her eyes went to the boy in question and then returned to Parker's innocent gaze. "Well, if he asked me I might actually say yes," she sighed in defeat, knowing it was true, "but he never bloody does ask me anything, not to a dance or on a date, he just trails after me like a little lost puppy, and what does it say about me if I make the first move?" she said dramatically. "I mean, hello? Desperate much?"

Parker couldn't help but smile. Sophie was just exactly as she was in the 'real world' here, and her and Nate had just as dumb a relationship as they had there too. Both were in love, neither wanted to be the first to admit it. Parker had to wonder if that meant these teenage versions were behaving like adults or if the ones she'd known first were like teens. Since she hadn't a clue what an accurate portrayal of a teenager would be like, she resolved to never really know and let it go.

"You think anyone will ask me?" she asked Sophie then, thinking once again of the upcoming dance.

The smile on Sophie's lips was equal parts kind and devious, just as it always was when she was having a plan.

"Oh, I can think of a couple of candidates for the job," she told Parker as her eyes drifted to the warring boys that still hadn't made it inside, even as the bell rang loud enough to be heard beyond the building. "Oh, bugger," Sophie cursed at the sound of it, bolting up the stairs and calling over her shoulder to Parker. "If I'm late for English class again, Professor Stark'll have my backside!"

Parker smiled and waved as her friend hurried away, seeing sense in an instant as she realised she was about to be late for class too and really couldn't afford to be, no matter how much the teachers liked her. She couldn't help the giddy feeling inside at the prospect of attending a high school Dance. If Homecoming was kind of like Prom, that couldn't be a bad thing. In all the movies she watched, Prom was always awesome, and it would mean she got to dress up all girly in a fancy dress and everything - that was fun sometimes, especially when Sophie helped her.

Hurrying down the hallway to her first class, she stopped short of turning the next corner when she heard yelling in the distance. Others may not have heard it, but Parker had good ears for these things and she knew the sound of distress in a voice even when it was trying to remain hidden. Sneaking back the way she'd come, she rounded the corner and peered down an empty stretch of corridor.

"I told you, I can't do it anymore," said a male voice, though it was so high-pitched it might have been mistaken for a female one if Parker couldn't clearly see the figure of a Freshman boy talking to a Senior - that was weird in itself, even she knew that.

"You will do as I tell you to do, unless you want your stay at this school to be a living nightmare, understand?" the unknown Senior replied as Parker ensured she stayed out of sight and listened intently.

"But Damien..." the little kid whined, only to be cut off by the guy he was talking to.

"That's Mr Moreau to you!" he snapped, "And don't you forget it. My uncle might be the Principal, but I run this school, understand?"

Parker's eyes were wide as saucers as she took in the information she'd just heard. The evil Damien Moraeu existed in this world too, as a student at Leverage high school. His uncle was the Principal which gave him power over the little kids, and clearly he was making them do bad things for him. This was something she was definitely going to have to talk to the team about... Only they weren't quite the team here, just students in school like everybody else.

With the second bell ringing loud in her ears, Parker pelted down the corridor, hoping she could sneak into her seat before anyone noticed she was late. Her mind was busily whirring on the idea that she might just a have a reason to be picking locks and shimmying through air ducts again before long. Those thoughts brought a huge grin to her lips, even bigger than Homecoming could induce. This was going to be so good!


	8. Chapter 8

“So, anyway, that’s pretty much the job,” explained Eliot from his spot on the chair by Parker’s bed. “They don’t need me for most of this stuff so, here I am again.” He shrugged, as if that was the only reason he showed up.

It was a lie, of course, because he was here as often as he could be anyway, even though the whole thing had to be pointless in anyone’s eyes. He kept on talking, in some misguided hope that she could hear something, anything of what he was telling her. Eliot knew from experience it was unlikely, but right now, it was all he had. It was all any of them had to hang onto, and though they tried to put on a brave face and fight on through, it was killing each one of them inside.

“Babe, if you knew what this was doin’ to us...” Eliot sighed, picking up Parker’s hand off the edge of the bed and holding on tight to it.

“If she knew, she’d come back,” said a voice, and the hitter looked up with tired eyes to see Hardison framed in the door way. “She can’t know. She too good a person to... to hurt us on purpose.”

Eliot nodded along in agreement, not even bothering to ask what the hacker was doing there. Clearly he had time to spare and any of that was spent with Parker. He respected that, and completely understood it. Soon the two guys were sat either side of the bed, holding each of their little thief’s hand, neither knowing what to say next, not for a long while.

“You come here a lot,” said Hardison after a long while, not a question but a statement of fact that he was already sure of.

Eliot wasn’t clear on how the hacker knew that, but it was true and he wasn’t ashamed of it or anything. He nodded his head in agreement. Yes, he was here a lot, more than perhaps he had realised until he sat here and thought on it. Parker meant too much for him to not care, for him to not be here making sure she was okay just as often as possible. He told the others a lot of his pain was borne out of guilt, and that was true in part. He did feel bad for what happened, kept telling himself if he had just convinced Parker not to drive that day, because he knew she was in no fit state.

Of course, guilt wasn’t the only reason he was here. He loved Parker in some kind of way that he probably couldn’t ever explain, because honestly, he didn’t really understand it himself. She was baby girl to Nate and Sophie somehow, she was the girl of Hardison’s dreams, but for Eliot, Parker was just different and special and indescribable. All he knew for sure was that somehow he loved her and he wasn’t sure how he’d deal if she didn’t come through this. Honestly, he could barely stand to think about how life would be without her there.

“It should be me,” he said eventually, not even really thinking about who he was talking to or what he was saying as his eyes stayed fixed on Parker’s face. “I’m the one that takes the knocks, that deals with the pain. I can’t have her doing that. It’s not her place, damnit!” he cursed, the urge to hit something almost overtaking him completely.

He let Parker’s hand go as he stood up and turned away, knowing losing his temper right now wouldn’t help. Hardison watched his friends reaction and a light dawned in his head. He’d had suspicions for a while now, mostly since Parker got hurt but a little while before that too. He told himself he was crazy, that it didn’t make sense, that he really didn’t want it to make sense, but the more he saw and the more he thought on it, the more it really did.

“You love her,” he said aloud, not even flinching with Eliot spun around to glare at him.

“Damnit, Hardison!” he growled, knowing yelling would only cause a scene. “Of course I love her, she’s part of this team... this family,” he amended with a look.

The hacker nodded that he understood that, but there was no way Eliot was getting away with the old ‘team is family’ line. Of course they were, no doubt, but as time went by Hardison got a little better at reading the hitter he called a brother. Everybody’s eyes gave them away, even thieves like them. Maybe the normal everyday folks didn’t see, but they couldn’t fool each other, not in things like this. Hardison was sure that what he thought before really was true and there was no way he could keep silent about it.

“I know you care for this whole team, hell, we all do that,” he agreed, “but Parker... you love her. You have feelings for her,” he said, another statement, no questions.

Eliot wanted to tell him he was crazy, maybe even crazier than Parker herself, but the words got stuck in his throat. He couldn’t love her that way, that’d be insane, and yet Eliot knew he never cared for anyone else the way he cared for Parker. Maybe it had taken this accident of hers to make him really face it, and now that he had, he wasn’t really sure how to deal, especially when it came to Hardison.

“I don’t wanna fight with you, man,” he told his friend honestly. “I don’t even know how this happened,” he admitted. “I just... I need her to be okay first, everything else second,” he explained the only way he could.

Hardison nodded his head, as he looked from Eliot to Parker and back.

“Same here,” he agreed. “Absolutely, same here.”

* * *

The high school version of the Leverage team were gathered in the teen-friendly McRorys, around their usual table, all with sodas in their hands. Parker had various opportunities during the day to bring up what she knew about Moreau, and yet no time had seemed right. Some how, discussing a potential job needed to be done in McRorys, otherwise it just didn’t feel right. Besides, talking about Damien Moreau and what he may or maybe not be up to seemed ill advised in the cafeteria, a classroom, or anywhere else within school. They could be overheard and that would be bad.

Now everything was safe, here in McRorys. Parker felt she was okay to tell her friends what was happening, or what she thought might be happening, and hope they could come up with some kind of plan. Nate was always good with plans, that’s why he was the leader, the mastermind, but then that was in the other world and not this one. Maybe here wouldn’t be the same, but Parker still had to try.

“I overheard something today,” she blurted out when a gap came up in conversation.

All eyes turned to her then, but it was Sophie who replied, with far too much enthusiasm.

“Ooh, is it juicy gossip?” she asked excitedly, as Eliot rolled his eyes.

“If that’s what it is, I ain’t stayin’ to listen,” he declared, moving to get up. “Hey, Hardison, you wanna shoot some pool?”

“No!” said Parker indignantly, grabbing each of them by a sleeve and pulling until they sat back down again. “It’s not gossip, it’s important,” she hissed, just in case anyone overheard, though somehow she doubted it.

“Is something wrong, Parker?” Nate checked, clearly finding her behaviour odd at best - well, she was used to that!

“I heard a Freshman kid getting threatened,” she admitted, leaning in and encouraging the others to do the same as she whispered, “by Damien Moreau.”

“Oh,” said Sophie, visibly deflating. “Well, that’s not very nice but, well, there’s bullying in every school, Parker, and it’s not really our place to step in when we don’t even know this kid,” she shrugged. “Besides, maybe Damien has a reason to dislike the boy,” she said, sipping on her fancy fruity drink.

“No,” Parker shook her head definitely. “The way he talked, I’m sure he does this a lot. He probably uses his power as the Principal’s nephew to be mean to the little kids and do bad things,” she insisted, wishing it was as simple as saying she knew Moreau was a bad guy because he was in another world.

If she said that, they really would all think she was crazy, the real lock you up in a padded cell kind. She just had to hope that she was enthustiatic enough about this that they were won over before long.

“Well, you don’t know for sure that he’s a big bad guy...” Nate considered.

“I do,” it was Eliot who cut in then, his expression too serious to be good and yet Parker was glad of that right now. “Don’t ask me how I know,” he told them, as everyone turned to look at him and the question was visible in all their eyes. “I just do, and the guy is bad news. Really bad,” he confirmed.

Parker wasn’t surprised that Eliot was the first to agree with her. That day when Nate announced the team had to work to bring Moreau down, it was the hitter’s reaction she had noticed most. Eliot was never scared, not really, but right then she saw something akin to fear and loathing pass over his face. He’d dealt with Moreau before she was certain of it, though she never asked how or why. Pissed off Eliot was never a good thing, not in her direction. He didn’t scare her but she didn’t like to make him mad, not really.

“So, this guy is bad news, we get it,” said Hardison then, “but what are we supposed to do about it? We not even sure what he’s doing.”

“Even if we were, we’re not superheroes or the bloody police,” Sophie reminded him. “We’re just students at a school, like all the others.”

“Maybe we don’t have to be,” said Nate then, having been fairly quiet up to this point.

Though his eyes were mostly focused into his ginger beer right now, he sounded a lot like Nate did when he was making some inspiring speech to his team. Parker was hardly aware that she was smiling widely as he rallied the group into action.

“If we can help somebody who’s suffering, shouldn’t we do it?” he asked them all, glancing up and around the circle then. “If we don’t, who will? We’ve all been bullied at some point or other, all of us,” he said pointedly, even as he looked to Eliot and Sophie. “The teachers, they try to help, but it doesn’t always work. The Principal is no use in this case if he’s Moreau’s uncle, so I say we make our own rules here. We’re all smart, we have skills, we could do this,” he told them definitely.

“We’d need real solid proof of what he’s doing, and we can’t run to no teacher with it when we done,” Hardison noted. “They all gonna fall in line with Uncle Principal.”

“We need a plan,” considered Sophie. “We’d have to, sort of, pull a con on this guy to bring him down.”

“First off, we gotta find out exactly what he’s doing, how far his control goes in our school,” said Eliot, looking sideways at Parker as she grinned and nodded her agreement.

“Okay, tomorrow we start gathering intel,” said Nate, taking charge as he was naturally wont to do. “It’s the only way to make this work.”

“I could hack his computer, see what I can find,” Hardison suggested.

“I can break into his locker.” Parker smiled with glee, the next in the circle, before all eyes shifted to Eliot.

“I guess I can lean on some guys I know.” He shrugged.

“And I can lean _into_ some guys,” Sophie smiled wickedly. “It’s amazing what they’ll tell you when you flutter your eyelashes.”

“And I think I know a way to get us a little more info that he won’t expect us to have.” Nate smirked, downing the remains of his drink in one.

Parker was grinning from ear to ear as she looked around her group of friends then. She was in high school with her team and they were still pulling cons. Right now it just seemed like the perfect world to be in.


	9. Chapter 9

People often used phrases like riding a bike or taking candy from a baby for things that came naturally or were easy. Parker used phrases like picking a lock to mean the same thing. It was the easiest, most natural thing in the world to her as she took the padlock in her hand, inserted a pick into the key hole and with a few deft moves, had Damien Moreau’s school locker bust wide-open.

There was not a sound made by her or anyone else since most people were in class. Parker was making the most of her free period, and checked left and right before delving into the locker belonging to the bad boy of Leverage High. They all had their parts to play - herself, Eliot, Hardison, Sophie, and Nate. They were going to meet up at McRorys again after school to share their evidence and come up with a plan of attack. It was no good mentioning anything in school, even at lunch when they would all sit together. Moreau only had to overhear, not even him but one of his friends, and this whole plan would be blown before it hardly began. That would be no good at all.

“Ooh, candy!” Parker said to herself, as she stole herself a few pieces, tucking them into her pocket.

A notebook followed and a few other things that would fit into her deep pockets. She had just retrieved some papers from what seemed to be a secret compartment when she heard someone coming. She slammed the door shut, bolted it again and ran around the corner, diving into the nearest storage closet. It had air vent access, she could be anywhere she wanted within minutes, she figured, as she removed the cover and shimmied inside.

Parker counted rooms as she went alone. One classroom, then two, the girls bathroom, another closet, and over the hallway... She stopped when she heard voices through the vent below her then, familiar voices that she hadn’t expected to be there. Laying out flat on her stomach, she peered down through the gaps in the vent cover and saw she was right, that Eliot and Sophie were stood below her in the empty corridor having a serious talk.

It was wrong to listen in on other people’s conversations, Parker knew that, but this was different. These were her friends, and she was sure she just heard her name. It had to be okay to listen in if you were the subject of what was being said, right? Parker thought so, and so she lay very still and listened wide eyed as Eliot an Sophie continued to talk...

* * *

It had been a long day, a very long day in fact. In the end, they got the job done like they always did, but not without a couple of close calls. Even Sophie showed signs of being exhausted, and she was always the one to look fabulous no matter what.

It didn’t work, pulling cons without Parker, it just didn’t. They were a team for a reason, because they all fit together, all of their skills and traits. The learning curve was over, they had become a well-oiled machine over the years, and now a cog from that machine was missing and it practically ground to a halt without her.

They had started out taking turns to come to the hospital, but that hadn’t really stuck. Nate struggled to go at all, no matter how much he loved Parker like a daughter, and Sophie knew he did. Hardison and Eliot in particular wanted to be here as often as possible, and Sophie herself was caught in the middle. She always wanted to be at her friends side, to see her and know she was at least still alive if not so well. On the flip side, it was agony to know Parker was so close and yet so far. Here in body but not in mind or spirit. Each day and night that passed, the likelihood of her waking became ever decreased, and the thought occurred to each of them that even if she did wake one day, there was no way to know what state her mind would be in.

Sophie may be a grifter, but first and foremost she was an actress. She painted on a brave smile when the team spoke of Parker, and encouraged them all to think positively. Deep inside, she cried harder than anyone, knowing that for all their wishful thinking and such, that Parker could be slipping further and further from their grasp every day, and this time there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to help.

It was what they did, saving those that nobody else could or would try to save, but none amongst Team Leverage were doctors or experts of the mind, not in this way. They were reliant on the medical professionals at the hospital, and even more so on Parker’s dogged determination to stand up to whatever crap life threw her way. She had to be stronger than what had happened to her, she just had to be, or all hope for the rest of them was completely lost.

Steeling herself against the sight of her comatose friend one more time, Sophie turned down the final corridor and headed for the door on the left behind which Parker lay still. She got quite the suprise when she opened said door and found Eliot sat by the blonde’s bed, holding her hand in his own uninjured one.

“What on Earth are you doing here?” she asked, not an accusation as such but it came out that way. “You should be at home resting after the punishment you took today!” she gasped at the sight of him, even worse now than a few hours ago when he all but promised to head straight to his bed to recover.

One of the things that had gone wrong in today’s heist was that the goons had seen past Sophie’s faked Southern charms, and Eliot had ended up fighting all five at once. He won, of course he did, there was never any question when it came to a fight with Eliot Spencer, but he had paid the price as well. Sophie was sure she could count ten bruises on the body parts she could see, and this was when the hitter was fully clothed. He was practically black and blue all over, she was sure, his arm in a makeshift sling across his body, and blood still threatening from the cut at his face and another on his hand.

“I’m fine,” he said hoarsely, a complete and abject lie, but Sophie really didn’t have it in her to argue.

It was his eyes that gave him away, it always had been. People didn’t always realise that Eliot’s acting skills were easily equal to Sophie’s own grifting ones. He couldn’t do an accent to save his life because everything had a y’all in it somewhere, and when he got mad it was all too easy for him to let his cover go in order to beat the living daylights out of the bad guy, blowing everything. Still, he was an actor, no question about that. He acted every day, hiding the fact he felt anything for anyone, pretending he was so tough, when Sophie knew different. There was no way to hide the pain in those baby blues of his whenever Parker’s name was mentioned, no way for her not to notice now that no matter the fact he was talking only to Sophie now, his gaze never did leave Parker’s mostly inanimate form.

“You care about her so much.” She sighed as she pulled up the other chair and sat down beside him.

“Yeah,” he replied easily. “It’s not like you don’t,” he added, just a little defensive perhaps, but she would allow him that considering the circumstances.

Sophie considered not saying anything, though discussing what she was sure were Eliot’s secret feelings for the little thief was preferable to surmising on the what ifs of Parker’s future, worrying about what was going on inside her frighteningly still mind and body.

With the both of them tired by the events of day, getting into a discussion that would walk the fine line of an argument seemed ill advised. Still, thinking this only made Sophie all the more determined to plough on. The state of Eliot, he looked better suited to the next bed over than the seat beside one, and yet instead of getting some rest and giving his body time to heal, he had dragged himself here, to Parker’s side. That had to mean something, and a lot more than just the old ‘she’s on my team’ excuse.

“I’m not easily shocked, you know?” said Sophie carefully, eyes fixed on Parker even as she spoke to Eliot and knew he was looking her way at last. “I also read people for a living, Eliot, and I’m very good at my job,” she reminded him, eyes shifting to meet his at the last.

There was no way out of this, and Eliot knew it as well as Sophie did. She saw through his protestations such as they were, she always could somehow. Maybe in the beginning they could fool each other once in a while, but three years in, there was just no way, not anymore. Even Hardison knew there was more to this than Eliot feeling guilty, more than him worrying he hadn’t protected a member of his family well enough. His emotions ran deeper than they were supposed to, deeper than most would suspect. A man that lashed out for a living, who had done the terrible things he had done, that image did not lend itself to caring and love.

“You’re not made of stone, Eliot,” said Sophie, almost as if she had read his mind. “You are allowed to have feelings,” she told him, just exactly what he needed her to say in that moment.

If she had developed such a skill as telepathy, Eliot was sure he wouldn’t be completely shocked. Nate had demonstrated how easy it was to hack someone’s head, just a couple of weeks ago, in that final job before Parker landed up here in the hospital. It was strange to think that just that short while ago they were all together, that Parker was making faces about the intricacies of High School life that she didn’t understand. Somehow it did seem like yesterday and yet in other ways it was a lifetime since anyone saw her smile or heard her laugh.

“I don’t know what I’m feeling, Soph,” Eliot sighed eventually, running a hand over his face and then back through his hair, wincing when he aggravated three seperate injuries in one simple movement. “I just need to her to wake up already, that’s all I know for sure right now”.

“I know,” she sympathised, putting a careful hand to the arm she was fairly certain was safe to touch without causing pain. “We all want that, and I’m sure Parker wants it too.”

“Maybe,” he replied, as he stared at the comatose blonde. “Maybe she’s happier this way for now, everything quiet and still. Probably the best rest she’s had in a long time,” he thought aloud.

Nightmares rarely invaded this kind of sleep, and Eliot knew Parker suffered with those, maybe more than he did. At least he deserved the frightening images and voices that invaded his subconscious each and every night. Parker’s had been inflicted upon her, her ghosts were undeserved and yet even harder to chase away than his own. The worst enemies were those that existed inside the mind. They couldn’t be punched into submission or begged for mercy. Eliot couldn’t take those away from Parker, couldn’t do anything for her right now but sit and wait and hope and pray.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough,” he said then, looking to Sophie with desperate eyes. “I need to do something for her.”

“I know.” She nodded. “And you will. Once she wakes up, she’s still going to need us. She’s going to need you as much as you need her.”

Eliot didn’t look so convinced and it showed in the way he glanced away then. He felt useless now and he still would when she came around. No matter what he felt for Parker, she couldn’t love him like that and he would never ask her to. Thankfully she was pretty oblivious to that kind of thing, though apparently Eliot was becoming ever more obvious in his feelings of the thief, since both Sophie and Hardison had noticed now.

“I’m not what she needs, Soph,” he said shaking his head. “I’m not even sure what it is she does need.”

“I’m not sure even Parker has figured that out yet.” The grifter smiled at thoughts of some of the odd conversation she and the little thief had shared before. “She never experienced anything real to know whether it’s what she wants or not. When she wakes up, you could at least give her the chance to find out how it feels to be loved liked that.”

“She already knows,” he growled low in his throat. “You know Hardison has been chasing her around since Day One...”

“You really think Parker has noticed his school boy attempts for attention? Guess again.” She shook her head, unable to keep from grinning as he looked at her with confusion then. “We’re women, Eliot, we talk about these things. Especially when the whole high school thing came up. As sweet as he is to her, Hardison isn’t... well, Parker’s type I suppose you could say.”

“And I am?” asked Eliot with a look of derision - he couldn’t believe that for a second.

“Perhaps.” The grifter shrugged her shoulders with the same elegance she did everything. “I don’t suppose we’ll know for sure until she gets a chance to tell us.”

Eliot nodded his agreement as they both tuned to look at Parker’s unmoving form once again. Everything was hanging on her opening her eyes to the world once more, being okay, being Parker again instead of this too still body laid out in front of them, barely even breathing.

* * *

Hardison was talking. Parker was aware of it but she could barely hear him, even though he was right beside her in the booth. Her eyes and ears were fixed on Eliot on the other side of the table, though he was neither looking at her or even speaking right now. Parker was often confused by human emotions and actions that made no sense to her, but this was different. She had definitely heard what she thought she heard, she was sure of it, and she just couldn’t figure out how it was true.

Sophie and Eliot had been talking, thinking they were alone. They had talked about Parker, and Eliot had admitted, in a way that even the blonde understood, that he liked her. Not just liked her in the way of being friends, but liked her in the way people did when they dated and kissed and all that stuff.

It wasn’t as if Parker had never looked at Eliot that way. The man was hot, no doubt, both in the world she had come from where he was a tough hitter, and in this one where he was the school quarter back with a reputation she didn’t fully understand. She also knew that in both places, Eliot was sweet and nice to her, growly and angry sometimes but never really scary, at least Parker never thought so. She didn’t think much about dating guys, that was something other girls did, fancy women like Sophie and all. She thought about sex sometimes, and more than once she had thought of Eliot that way, but never of Hardison, even though it was the hacker she always seemed to end up fake making out with on cons. It never had happened with Eliot, and Parker did wonder what it would be like if it did. Maybe they could work that into this con they were going to pull on Damien Moreau? If what she heard Eliot saying to Sophie was true, and he did always tell them the truth, as far as she knew, then he wouldn’t mind having to kiss her.

“What?” the guy himself snapping at her made Parker jump then.

“What?” she echoed back, not sure why he was even speaking to her so suddenly.

“You’re staring at me,” he told her. “Again!”

Parker opened her mouth to make some excuse or other, as Sophie rolled her eyes at the pair of them. Before anyone had a chance to say anything else, Nate called for order at this little meeting of theirs, and all four turned to look at him where he sat at the end of the booth on a stool.

“Okay, so what do we have so far?” he asked, looking from one member of the ‘team’ to another. “Hardison?”

“Check it out.” The hacker grinned proudly as he turned around the laptop and showed off the information he had found. “We got schedule, emails, the whole works, and not just for Moreau. I piggy backed onto his own back door to the Principal’s records. Man, this is like gold, right here!” he declared. “And man, you should see the file they got on you,” he told Eliot with a look.

“Okay, okay,” Nate encouraged the pair not to start fighting right now, and Parker wasn’t sure whether to be glad or disappointed if she were honest.

“I broke into his locker,” she piped up suddenly, realising when she was shushed from four directions that maybe she should keep her voice down. “Oops, sorry?”

“It’s not your fault,” Nate assured her, looking around the bar and making a decision.

Before long, he had taken his team through to the familiar back room of McRorys, away from prying ears and eyes. Parker was perfectly happy, especially since she was now sat right next to Eliot where she wanted to be. She didn’t really understand her own feelings where he was concerned right now, but didn’t think it mattered much. The focus had to be bringing down Moreau. Maybe if they managed it here, if she ever did go back to the ‘real’ world, they’d have done it there too, though Parker wasn’t exactly sure if that would work or not.

“Oh, right,” she reacted when she realised everyone was no waiting to see what information she had gathered from Moreau’s locker.

All in all, it wasn’t the greatest haul, she had to admit, but it might be useful yet. Maybe not the pictures of half-naked chicks, but the paperwork and such maybe. Next it was Sophie’s turn to present and she grinned as she told how the guys she knew easily gave up any information they had. Unfortunately, they had very little, but Sophie had three invitations to Homecoming already, something she told Nate with a smile that spoke volumes, even to Parker who was usually pretty oblivious to such things.

“Some guys I used to know,” said Eliot then, as he flipped through a book Parker had liberated from Moreau’s locker. “They know about this,” he said, showing the symbols and codes written in the pocket sized volume.

“They’re cryptographers?” checked Sophie with a confused frown, at which Eliot rolled his eyes.

“No, they used to work with Damien,” he explained. “This is a log of who owes what cash. It’s a protection racket,” he said grimly, handing the book over to Nate.

It made sense, Parker was sure it did. She had heard Moreau threatening that Freshman kid. He was probably telling him he better pay up or risk the consequences. It made her feel sick to her stomach to know that kind of thing could be happening in this High School setting she’d been enjoying so much. At the same time, she was all for pulling whatever con was needed to stop it!

“Well, Moreau does have form for that kind of thing,” said Nate knowingly, waiting a moment until all eyes were on him before pulling out a folder from his back pack and tossing it into the centre of the table.

“What is that?” asked Hardison when no-one else did.

“Moreau’s permanent file,” said Nate with a smile, “or at least a copy. A friend of mine has... connections,” he told them slyly.

“An Italian friend of yours?” checked Sophie, making everybody stare. “I saw you earlier, getting friendly with that girl from the restaurant downtown.”

The others smiled as Sophie and Nate stared at each other then.

“What’s the matter, Sophie? I’m not allowed to talk to girls now?” he asked her, somehow a challenge, even though it was such a simple question.

The tension broke when Parker bust up laughing, seemingly for no reason. She just found it so funny that everything here was geared so similarly to the world she had come from. Though it was a different kind of place and situation, they were all the same people, she reasoned, but it was still funny.

“Okay,” Nate called order one more time, as he looked over the evidence spread across the table. “So, we know what Moreau is up to. Now we just need a plan for how to stop him. Let’s get to work!”


	10. Chapter 10

Parker had just made it into the house in time for dinner. Archie wasn’t mad, though he did remind her about her timekeeping since he didn’t want his spaghetti to spoil. Whilst they ate, Frankie made jokes about Parker probably having a boyfriend and that was why she was always late these days, but the blonde didn’t rise to it. Honestly, she didn’t know what to say, other than to deny it was true.

As much as she loved and trusted her family here, she couldn’t tell them about going after Moreau, it might be dangerous or something. Much safer to keep quiet about it, and it was certainly easy to keep her mouth closed around the delicious food that Archie had prepared.

There were soon smiles and laughter a plenty as the family shared the stories of the day. Parker and Frankie told Archie how their classes had gone, tales about their friends and all, and then he told ‘the kids’ a funny story about the neighbours dog attacking the mean old mail man.

This was the life for Parker, a situation she had so often dreamt of being in and now she was here. Now her dreams were different, they were of the world she left behind. She wouldn’t mind that so much but everything was always so dark there, everyone was so sad and she had yet to figure out why. Most of the time she chose not to think about it, and this was another of those times, as her mind wandered in a new direction when dinner was over.

“And where are you going, young man?” asked Archie when Frankie scrambled from his stool at the breakfast bar and hurried to the back door, skateboard in hand.

“I promised to go meet my friends down the block,” he said as he turned back, his tone already giving away the fact he knew he shouldn’t leave yet.

“And whose turn is it to do the dishes?” his ‘father’ prompted.

Parker watched her kid brother’s face fall and immediately had an idea.

“I’ll do them,” she said quickly, starting to clear everything into the sink. “It’s fine, Frankie can take my turn tomorrow night.” She shrugged when Archie looked from her brother to her and back.

There was a grin a mile wide on the kid’s face when Archie sighed and said there as clearly no point in him arguing. Frankie darted over, planted a kiss on a startled Parker’s cheek, and with a ‘Thanks, sis’, he was gone. She was confused but pleased by his reaction, not half so confused as Archie, of course. It was true that Parker was a nice enough girl to offer to do a favour for someone or to help her brother out, but offering to do extra chores was not exactly normal for any teenager.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?” he asked as he stepped up beside her, picking up the dishtowel to dry each item she dunked into the soapy water.

Parker opened her mouth to tell him that nothing at all was wrong, but just as soon as she looked at him, she knew Archie wasn’t going to buy that. The truth of it was she had an ulterior motive in helping out Frankie. She wanted some alone time with her father figure to ask him about what was on her mind right now.

“I was wondering...” she said, eyes fixed on the dishes in the sink now as she washed them, “about boys and, y’know, dating and stuff,” she admitted, feeling so stupid even bringing it up somehow.

“Okay,” Archie nodded once. “Well, what exactly were you wondering, sweetheart?”

“There’s this guy, in school,” she began to explain. “We’re friends, and it’s cool, but... well, I overheard him talking to another friend, and he said that he likes me, y’know, as in likes me,” she emphasised so he would understand.

“And you don’t like him?” checked Archie, trying to see her face but she wouldn’t look up.

“I... I do like him,” she admitted, immediately bursting out laughing at her own words.

This was so strange, to be talking about liking boys, liking Eliot in fact, and to Archie of all people. She felt silly and yet she hoped he would be understanding and help her out. Parker never expected to be in a situation like this, and she certainly didn’t know how to handle it. Archie had a wife and kids in the ‘real’ world, he had to have some insight.

“I never had a boyfriend before,” she told him, serious again in an instant, but that was okay since he was well-used to her odd and even crazy reactions. “I never even dated, not really and... and what if I screw it up?” she asked in earnest.

“Oh, come on, sweetheart” Archie threw down the dishtowel and pulled Parker around to look at him then. “You’re not going to screw it up, no daughter of mine ever could,” he winked at her. “Besides, if this boy likes you so much, and let’s face it, who wouldn’t? Well, then he’s going to be understanding if you make a little mistake here and there. Nobody is perfect, kiddo.”

“I know.” Parker nodded, smiling brightly at the sound of his words.

She was sure Archie would know just what to say to her, and she wasn’t wrong. Everything was going to be okay, she was absolutely certain of it, just because he told her so. She was so stupidly happy here in this alternate world. Parker honestly couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave.

“Thank you,” she said, as she went up on her toes and planted a kiss on Archie’s cheek.

Within a second she was darting away towards the stairs, telling him she had homework to do that just wouldn’t wait. A startled but amused Archir was left chuckling in her wake, with many a washed dish to dry and put away. He had no idea that up above in her bedroom, Parker wasn’t so much studying for the kind of homework he would expect. Instead, her lock picks were spread across her bed, alongside a blue-print style map of the school. Math and English was all very well, but she had a mission that was so much bigger than school work. They had to bring down Moreau, one way or the other, and their plan was to be put into action bright and early tomorrow morning.

* * *

It was dark and cold, in a way that was misty and unreal, and yet it was almost too real to bear. Parker wasn’t sure why she felt so shaken by the grey room that came into focus around her. Maybe it was because her limbs felt like lead and her head ached terribly. There was a beeping sound, loud and regular, and something way back in her foggy mind told her she should recognise it.

She was alone, so very alone, and scared, but not like those nightmares of her past that haunted her. She didn’t know this room, and no people were present to worry her or strike fear in her heart. Parker didn’t know what to think, and when she opened her mouth to speak, to scream and shout perhaps, nothing happened.

All in an instant, Parker woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in her bed. She was sweating all over but cold to the core, breathing as if she had run a mile at top speed. In truth, she had been asleep in a bed she knew, in this room that belonged to her teenage self ever since she awoke to the smell of an Archie-cooked breakfast and a world in which she attended High School with every friend and enemy she ever knew.

As she calmed herself down, Parker wasn’t sure if she wanted to try and remember what must have been a dream or just let it slide away. A part of her seemed to know what that place was, the same part that wondered if it was where she had come from, the world where she was part of a team of thieves in Boston and all. Another part, the larger part, was too bothered by the experience to think on it much. She was happy here, she had everything she could need or want. Sometimes a dream was just a dream.

Parker laid her head back down and closed her eyes, urging sleep to come back again, but this time take her to a more pleasant place. She would wake up in fear three more times in the night, always with the same blank grey room and beeping sound in her head. She could try to keep on dismissing it but Parker was starting to wonder if it was ever going to give up.

* * *

“Parker!” Nate snapped when her mind seemed to wander away, leaving her in a state of ‘away with the fairies’ as Sophie put it.

“Sorry,” she apologised immediately she realised. “Um, what did you just say?” she checked with the teams self-appointed mastermind.

“You okay with your project or you think you’re gonna need a little help?” he asked her in a code they had already established for use in school.

It took Parker a minute to remember the rules that went along with that. After all, if nothing else, the blonde thief was the straight-talking kind that didn’t hold with games and such. Talking in code ought to be fun, she reckoned, but it really wasn’t, especially when she still felt weirdly distracted by last night’s recurring dream.

“I’ll help her out,” said Eliot, watching warily as a couple of other students passed down the halls. “Another pair of eyes couldn’t hurt, right?”

“Right.” Parker nodded in agreement, suddenly unable to help the grin that came to her lips.

She never felt so girlish and silly as she did around Eliot lately. Especially since she talked to Archie about boyfriends and everything, seemingly getting his approval when it came to dating. Parker was sure Eliot liked her, and she was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that she liked him too. Now he was offering to be her look-out as she snuck into one of the classrooms in the unused east block to plant cameras and bugs. It was kind of romantic, at least Parker thought so. She knew little of romance so maybe she was wrong, but it was her interpretation of the situation and that was fine.

“You okay?” asked Eliot as the two of them headed off together.

“Yeah, sure, I’m good,” she told him quickly, perhaps nodding her head a little too much.

“Good,” he replied with a smile that made something happen inside Parker that she would never be able to explain, so she didn’t try.

Now wasn’t the time for it anyway, they had a job to do here. All sources suggested that this was the place that Moreau used as his office, in a way, a base of operations where he could meet with his lackeys and stash any money and such that he needed to keep safe. To catch him in the act was the point of this activity, and Hardison’s secretive technology was all that was needed. Parker’s expertise in being generally sneaky was to be employed, since the easiest way in without being caught by either Moreau, his friends, or any member of the faculty, was to take the air ducts.

Outside the east block, Eliot looked around to ensure no-one was watching, then gave Parker a boost up to the hatch that would take her inside via the ducts.

“Be careful, and holler if you need me, okay?” he called softly behind her.

Parker didn’t answer, but she smiled all the same at how much he clearly cared. Right now she had to concentrate. Navigating her way through, counting the junctions and turns so she would arrive above Moreau’s own secret ‘office’; that was pretty easy. She peered down through the grate, glad to see the room currently empty and then carefully dropped down onto silent feet.

It was ten minutes later, with all tiny cameras and mics hidden from view, that she suddenly realised she was about to be somewhat less alone. There were voices beyond the door and there wasn’t time to get herself back up into the only vent route above her head. She would have to move something to stand on, the jump was just too big. In a moments panic, she dodged over to the window, opened it up, and leapt clean through, sure everything would be fine.

“Holy...” Eliot reacted immediately, but still couldn’t quite manage to catch Parker properly, the two of them landing in a heap on the grass.

Parker had the weirdest sense of deja vu as she rolled off Eliot on instinct and looked sideways at him, whilst she tried to catch her breath.

“What the hell, Parker?” he asked her, breathing just as hard from the shock and the impact.

“You should’ve been ready this time.” She smiled, before realising too late that wouldn’t make any sense to him.

Teenage Eliot didn’t remember what happened in Miami with her and Adult Eliot a couple of years ago. Only Parker remembered the other world, the one she assumed had been real but had never been quite sure what was and wasn’t since she landed here.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” he told her, though he laughed when he said it and not a trace of malice was in his tone.

“Twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag,” she repeated words he had said to her in both worlds and he only laughed all the more, covering his face with his hands.

They should’ve got up and moved, obviously, but they didn’t. Neither of them cared to, and before long they were looking sideways at each other again, and Parker got that warm fuzzy feeling deep inside when Eliot smiled genuinely at her.

“Parker,” he said in a soft tone she barely recognised. “You, er... You wanna go to Homecoming with me, darlin’?” he asked her.

She might have answered, only just at that moment she overheard a commotion one floor up in the building right beside them.

“Who opened that window?” boomed an angry Moreau, and Parker was on her feet in an instant.

Her hand grabbed Eliot’s own, encouraging him up too, and the pair pelted around the next corner, breathing hard once again as they slammed one after another against the wall where no-one would see.

“Yes,” she told him breathlessly then. “I’d love to go to Homecoming with you, Eliot.” She smiled widely.

She was off and running again a second later, just because she didn’t know what else to do. Parker never liked a guy like this before, and she certainly never thought she would get asked to Homecoming. It ought to be impossible for her to even be here, getting the High School experience she thought was lost to her. Parker was so glad to be here though, so thrilled with how things were turning out. Her worrying dreams were all forgotten now as she thought only of Eliot and the upcoming dance they were to attend. Life was good.


	11. Chapter 11

“So, the thing is, I gotta pull up all the mad skills I used to have for my violin playin’ and pull off this virtuoso performance,” Hardison explained to the still form of his friend in the hospital bed.

He smiled and chuckled at how ridiculous the con all sounded, tried to make light of it. The truth was he was terrified, and not just about standing up in front of a thousand people, his team, the mark, and everyone, playing an instrument he barely laid a hand on since he was fourteen. The hacker was equally as scared about Parker and how she hadn’t moved yet, not opened her eyes once since the car wreck that landed her here in the hospital. Hardison didn’t have Eliot’s knowledge of injuries and head trauma, but he did know that the longer a person was out, the less chance there was of them ever coming back, or worse, coming back incomplete.

“Oh, mama, you got no idea how hard this is,” he told her, not really sure she could hear a word but determined to try anyway. “It’s tough enough tryin’ to figure this con without you, using Eliot’s limited explosives knowledge and all. It might still work, maybe, but it ain’t right doing it without you, girl.” He shook his head.

Hardison felt so dumb, so useless. He knew it was the same for all of his team-mates when they came here to visit with Parker. Nobody knew if she could hear them, if she was ever coming back, and it was killing each and every one of them inside knowing they couldn’t help.

They were Team Leverage, they helped people when no-one else would or could, that was their job. When it came to one of their own, they were useless, unable to save Parker from her comatose state. All any of them could do was wait and hope, wish and pray, that maybe one day her head would sort itself out enough for her to come back to them. With a little luck, it would be before her body suffered too much from lack of movement and everything. The more time went on, the harder it got to believe that things would ever be okay and back to normal.

“You, er... you’d pro’ly laugh if you heard me practising my performance,” Hardison forced a smile through the tears that threatened, as he picked up Parker’s lifeless hand in both of his. “This con, you’d be all up in there, in your element, mama, cracking locks and busting into vaults...” His voice wavered a little and he cleared his throat before he continued. “Eliot, he, er, he’ll do a good job, I know it. Man’s got skills, we be cool, you don’t gotta worry about that but... but he’s not the same either, since you landed up in here,” he explained.

It hurt to admit it, but Hardison knew in his heart of hearts that Eliot loved Parker just as much as he did, and the more he thought on it, the more he realised what a perfect couple they’d make. On the surface, it seemed crazy, but then it was simple enough to recall that both Parker and Eliot had their crazy ways that would just about fit perfectly together.

They turned to each other a lot. Hardison had watched from afar as Parker helped patch Eliot’s wounds, almost wishing in the strangest way that he got hurt just so she’d touch him that way. He bore witness to Eliot instructing Parker on her fighting stance, shifting her body around in moves akin to a dance. If anyone else touched the girl she jumped a mile clear or stabbed the asshole that laid a hand on her. With Eliot, she never had flinched, not even in the beginning. Though it was often Hardison himself that got to make out with Parker on cons, play the pretend couple, it was Eliot she turned to in real life.

The more he thought on it, the more Hardison found evidence in the past and then in the present that Eliot ad Parker were way more destined than himself and the little thief could ever be. He couldn’t handle her the way the hitter could, she would be too much for him, and it became clearer every day that Eliot cared a great deal more for Parker than anyone else around. Sure, he claimed to feel just guilt over the accident that caused the blonde to be here in this state, but there was more to it than that, and everybody saw it. Hell, Eliot had all but admitted it a week or so ago in this very room.

“Parker?” said Hardison then holding her hand tighter between both his own. “Y’know, I dunno if you and Eliot... I dunno what’ll happen with that if, when,” he amended feeling nauseous, “when you come around. If you two wanna be... whatever you wanna be, I’ll get it, and it’ll be cool,” he told her with a fake grin she couldn’t see and a shake in his voice he was hoping she couldn’t really hear. “I love you like nothin’ else in the world, girl, but if he what you want? Then you come back and get him, okay?” he told her firmly. “Please, come back.”

* * *

“And I’m all like ‘Yo, girl, come back here, you ain’t like nobody else in the world to me.'" Hardison grinned as he told his story. “And the next minute, we there and she agreeing to be my date to the Homecoming Dance,” he explained proudly to his assembled friends.

Parker giggled at how ridiculously excited he was about getting a date, sharing a look with Sophie who nodded happily. She was pleased things had worked out this way too, always a little worried before that Eliot and Parker getting close would break poor Hardison’s heart. It seemed he had a new girl in his sights now, and she was willing to be his. It was all working out perfectly, both girls realised, as Hardison encouraged Eliot to high five him and the jock did so, albeit unwillingly.

Of course, that still left one couple to figure out, and even as Eliot looked sideways at Parker and they shared a grin, she couldn’t help but feel bad for Sophie. Nate hadn’t asked her to go to the dance yet, and hadn’t shown any sign of even considering it. Parker was certain he must have thought about it, but he was all nervous and twitchy, just like in the world she had come from. A mastermind of crime he may be, but Nathan Ford wasn’t smart when it came to relationships.

Parker didn’t judge him on that, she hardly knew what she was doing herself, but even she could tell, in that world as well as this, that Sophie and Nate were completely in love. They wanted to be together, and yet they never quite got as close as they should, just carried on dancing around each other. It was painful to watch, be they a group of good guy thieves planning a con, or kids in high school with plans made for Homecoming.

“So, we’re going to the dance together, and Hardison has a date now, miracle that it is,” Eliot noted with a smirk. “Then there were two,” he said with a look towards Sophie and the gap in the fence through which Nate should come at any moment.

The teenage version of the worlds greatest grifter huffed at the implication and stuck out her chin.

“I wouldn’t go the Homecoming Dance with Nathan Ford if he were the last man on the planet,” she said definitely. “Not that he’d bloody ask me even if we were the last two people on Earth,” she muttered then, a moment before the young man in question appeared.

He had looked both ways outside of their spot under the bleachers, and then sure that no-one was watching, slipped inside the gap. It was a good hiding place they had found for their secret meetings, somewhere nobody would think to look or expect to find any of them, never mind all together. Besides, the football field was around back of the school and Moreau’s so-called office was at the front on the far side of the grounds. It was possibly the furthest they could be from the guy without leaving school grounds, and in that sense it was perfect.

“Okay, Hardison, run it,” said Nate as the group gathered around the laptop the hacker had set on a folding table in the centre of the dark space.

“Here we have it,” he said as he brought up footage and sound from the bugs Parker had planted.

They all watched and listened as Moreau proved his crimes over and over. Money he had his goons take from young students, talk of deals he had made in his protection racket, and unless the team were very much mistaken, drugs he was pushing through other channels too. With every passing moment, Moreau proved the badness they all knew he was capable of.

Parker felt Eliot’s hand grip hers when she shuddered involuntarily at the realisation of how bad their enemy really was. It was comforting in the oddest way that he would notice her reaction and do that, it made her smile without really thinking about it.

“So we have proof that Moreau is the very scum we suspected he really was,” said Sophie after a while. “What good does it really do us?” She shrugged.

“Well, we know we can’t take this to the Principal,” considered Nate, as Hardison killed the sound and pictures and backed up the files for safe keeping.

“Can we go over his head?” asked Eliot. “I mean, the school board, maybe? The guy can’t get away with this.”

Parker nodded her agreement, and Nate opened his mouth to answer, only to be a little distracted for a moment when he realised the pair before him were holding hands. It wasn’t that it mattered so much as it was just one more thing that made him look like a coward for not asking Sophie out already. The Homecoming Dance was the perfect opportunity, and yet he had not taken it. Eliot and Parker had dived right in, but not him. With a shake of his head, Nate got his bearings and answered Eliot’s question.

“There’s a possibility that the school board would do something about this,” he considered, “but we don’t know if the Principal has friends on the board or if anybody would listen to us. To them, we’re just a bunch of kids.” He shrugged, as the bell rang out loud and clear, signalling the end of their break.

“Ooh, yay!” Parker enthused. “I have double math now.” She grinned too widely.

“There’s something wrong with you.” Eliot chuckled, his words meant much more kindly than they might once have been, as he tugged on her hand and led her out from under the bleachers.

Hardison would wait the required couple of minutes before making his own escape, followed by Sophie and then finally Nate, just as they had arrived before.

“I love being here,” said Parker, without really thinking, feeling silly a moment later and bursting out laughing at herself. “Wow, that sounded really corny, huh?”

“No, not really.” Eliot smiled kindly. “I’m glad you like it here. I know you said you moved around a lot before. I wouldn’t want you to leave here too soon,” he told her with a look in his eyes that was enough to overwhelm poor Parker.

They had stopped walking and she had hardly noticed as his baby blues stared into her own wide eyes. This had to be how Disney princesses felt in those movies on TV. All at once she was Ariel in a boat with Prince Eric, and every talking creature in creation singing ‘Kiss the Girl’ all around. That was what freaked her out, the idea that Eliot might kiss her. She wasn’t sure why it made her want to run, maybe because it would be a serious move forward in some kind of relationship. Maybe because technically in this world it would probably be her first ever kiss. Parker couldn’t explain why, but all in a rush she was apologising and saying she had forgotten something, running full pelt back the way they had come, towards the safety of the teams hide-out beneath the bleachers.

When Parker got back to the gap in the fence, she checked all around that no-one was looking and then made to slip inside. She stopped short of actually doing so when she realised Nate and Sophie were both still in there, and not exactly talking about the con on Moreau.

Parker tilted her head as she watched what appeared to be two of her friends licking each others tonsils, since kissing was a very big understatement! Not that she minded that they were making out, it probably meant they had finally admitted their feelings and Nate would take Sophie to Homecoming. In that sense, all was right with the world. Of course, as Parker moved away from the secret hide-out and gave her friends some alone time, the smile fell off her face when she remembered why she was here. She just ran away from Eliot when all he probably wanted to do was kiss her, like boyfriends did with girlfriends. Parker wasn’t sure she was ready for that. She liked the idea of going to Homecoming with Eliot and dancing with him and maybe kissing him, but right in that moment it was just wrong, she couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t explain why if he asked her, and he probably would. It wasn’t fair, Parker thought, as she hitched her book bag higher on her shoulder and headed to class, she had been in such a good mood about Math and everything. Now she just felt confused and sad, and weirdly tired all of a sudden. Even in this world it seemed, life was not always plain sailing.


	12. Chapter 12

“So, the plan is to wait until the Homecoming Dance. It’s the perfect opportunity to show Moreau up for exactly what he is in front of everybody, including those than can actually do something about him,” Nate explained to his team as they sat gathered in the back room of McRorys.

“If we go announcing all his flaws to a gym full of people...” began Sophie, with concern evident in her eyes.

She didn’t scare easily, but nobody wanted to be on the wrong side of Damien Moreau. If they must show him up for all that he was, surely they must keep their identities a secret.

“It’s cool, Soph, I got it covered,” said Hardison with a grin. “See, we takin’ all the video and the audio from those bugs Parker planted, we do a little mixin’ around, and we pretty much got ourselves a confession tape to show off at Homecoming without anybody knowin’ where it came from.”

“That could work.” Eliot nodded then. “They always put up the big screen, show the football game and all. If we can switch out the game footage with this...”

“I can totally do that,” said Parker with a grin. “Switch a disc for another disc? That’s like taking diamonds from the French National Bank. Y’know, candy from a baby?” she tried instead when everyone looked at her oddly.

“That’s my girl,” said Eliot, pulling her close with an arm around her shoulders and kissing her temple.

Parker resisted the urge to bolt at the contact and instead let herself relax into it a little. She was in control here, she was safe and okay, just like always with her team, with Eliot in particular. He would never harm her, never want her to do anything she wasn’t totally okay with. He hadn’t even made a big deal out of running out on him yesterday when he might’ve kissed her. It was all fine.

“So, just one week to go then,” said Sophie with a smile. “The Homecoming dance is where Moreau meets his match”.

“That’s the plan,” Nate agreed, “but more importantly than that, y’know, the Homecoming Dance is somewhere to enjoy ourselves, now our work is done”.

Parker wasn’t sure she liked how definite that sounded. Their work was done, the con was complete. Once Moreau went down, they would have no need for cons anymore, they’d stop being a team. After Homecoming, maybe they wouldn’t even be friends anymore, maybe Eliot would realise he didn’t really want to date Parker at all. There was a feeling of panic rising in the blonde’s chest as she saw in her minds eye a time when this whole world of high school and fun began to fall apart.

There was a pulling sensation in the very centre of her body and she sat bolt upright in her seat, moving right out of Eliot’s arms then. Her hand went to her chest and Parker felt as if she couldn’t breathe. They were talking to her, the voices of her friends called her name, asked her if she was okay. Four voices became one, repeating her name over and over, and then it twisted again into the shrill beep of a machine. The world faded out, spun on its axis and disappeared. Parker closed her eyes, wished it away, but the moment she looked at the world again she wished she hadn’t.

It was a nightmare, the very same one she had been having on and off since she arrived here, but it had never been this clear. Green-grey walls came into shocking focus, the beeping sound of a heart monitor pulsing from above her head. A hospital. She was in a hospital bed, all alone and cold, and every muscle ached. No, she didn’t want to be in a hospital, with pills and needles and doctors prodding at her, she didn’t want it. She closed her eyes again and wished it away, willed herself to be back where she had been before, with her friends beside her, with Eliot’s arms around her. She literally screamed and then when she opened her eyes again, Parker stopped panicking, allowing everyone else to take over.

“Parker, are you okay?” Eliot asked her as he leaned over her body.

She was lying on the floor, the little thief realised then, with all her friends peering down at her from above. All were standing except for Eliot who was down on his knees at her side, one hand cradling her face as he met her eyes. He was so scared for her, he cared so much. Between that and the fright she had, finding herself in a hospital bed as she had, Parker could have cried, but she didn’t.

“I... I’m fine,” she said shakily, sitting up much faster than Eliot was really happy with.

“What happened, mama?” Hardison asked worriedly. “I mean it was like... man, I don’t even know what it was,” he confessed, visibly shaken by what he had just seen.

“Hey, if you’re going to get up, slowly does it,” Nate advised, reaching for the side Eliot wasn’t already holding and easing Parker back up onto her feet.

They deposited her in the chair she had tumbled from moments before, and Parker looked at each of them with wide eyes. She swallowed hard, tried to regain focus. That had been such a strange few moments, and honestly, she didn’t want to think about what it might all mean. Right now, she just wanted everyone to stop staring at her like a bug under a microscope. Yeah, that would be a really good start.

“Honestly, I’m fine now.” She forced a smile at them all, as each of her friends re-took their seats and let out a sigh of relief that whatever had happened was now over. “I just... I dunno, I felt weird, but it’s nothing to worry about,” she promised them.

After a few moments, they seemed to accept what she told them and move the conversation on. Parker joined in as best she could, smiled and laughed so nobody would worry, but the truth of it was she was more panicked by what had happened than anyone else. She got the distinct feeling she knew just exactly where she had gone and why, and it freaked her out more than she’d like.

* * *

“Oh, sweetie, I wish you would just wake up already!” said Sophie frustratedly, pulling Parker’s hand up into her own. “Come on! We can’t go on like this. Nobody is right since this happened, none of us know how to cope as a foursome when we should be five. It’s like a missing cog or... oh, I don’t know,” she said with a shake of her head. “I only know we need you, and... and y’know Eliot and Nate aren’t the only ones feeling guilty here,” she admitted.

It was true enough. Sophie could not blame herself for Parker’s condition, she really hadn’t played any part in it, even less than the boys who seemed to feel so terribly bad about what had happened, as if they were the ones that made Parker’s car crash that day. Sophie’s real problem was that she felt in some strange way that she was being punished for walking out on these people last year, for walking out on Parker just when she was getting used to having another woman in her life that cared.

Nate joked that Sophie was mother to all the others, she always countered that she was older sister only, and not advanced enough in years to be anything else. Either way, she was aware of how Parker turned to her in a moments crisis over grifting or trouble with the men in their lives. There was a certain amount of dependence and trust. Sophie broke that trust when she walked away, and only realised how much damage she could potentially have caused when she returned and Parker broke one of her own golden rules, hugging her good friend Sophie as if the world would end if she let go. It touched the grifter more than she could ever express, but she still had not considered how her team might really have missed her. At least they had the comfort of knowing she was safe and well, that she had left of her own accord. Poor Parker was lost to the team and could yet be lost forever. It was almost too painful to even think about, but Sophie was now understanding what it was to have one of four solid supports torn out from under her. She was spiralling downwards, unable to find her balance, sure she never could until the little blonde thief was back with them.

“Parker, please,” she begged her, tears in her eyes and a wobble in her voice that could not be helped. “We miss you so much. If you can hear me at all, please, please give me a sign. A blink, a wiggle of your fingers, anything.”

The young woman in the bed remained silent and still, and Sophie didn’t know whether she would rather cry or scream. She was stopped from doing either as the door opening startled her and the sight of Nate made her want to sob all the more.

“I, er... I couldn’t wait in the car anymore.” He shook his head as he moved around the bed too slowly and came to stand behind Sophie’s chair, placing a careful hand on her shoulder. “How’s she doing?” he asked.

“The same,” Sophie replied sadly, keeping one hand on Parker’s as the other came up to cover Nate’s own at her shoulder. “Thank you for coming in.”

Nate just nodded when she glanced up at him, unable to speak right now. A couple of times he had driven Sophie or Hardison into the hospital but stayed in the parking lot himself. More times than that he had brought just himself here, with plans to make a visit on his own. He hardly ever got as far as this room, fear and pain sending him scurrying back to the bottle he knew so well, that would bring little comfort but all the darkness of oblivion if he could just drink enough - he never could.

“Six weeks,” he said too softly.

“I know,” Sophie sniffed, fighting so hard to be strong.

In so many ways this was their little girl lying here, wasting away. Every week, every day that passed, there was less chance of Parker coming back from the brink. Even if she made it out of the dark and returned to her team, her family, they all knew the likelihood of her mind being intact grew smaller with each passing day.

The door opened again after a moment, and in came Hardison and Eliot, bickering like they so often did. They stopped mid-sentence, Eliot in the middle of his usual ‘Damnit Hardison’ apparently, as they realised they were not the only ones here. This was not at all pre-planned, the boys clearly hadn’t even meant to show up together, and certainly hadn’t banked on finding Nate and Sophie there.

“We shouldn’t all be here together... two at a time rule,” muttered the mastermind as he went for the door.

Eliot stepped in his way.

“How often are you here?” he asked, no accusation in his tone, just genuine curiosity.

“Well, er, actually in the room? Not much because... well, I don’t always make it,” he admitted, shuffling his feet and glancing once or twice at Parker lying still on the bed as ever. “Sometimes I just, I sit in the car and I think about her in here. I can’t... I just feel better being closer sometimes.”

“I always think it’ll feel better to be here, holding her hand, feeling useful,” Sophie piped up then. “Then I’m here and... and I never felt more useless.”

She was so close to tears, Hardison reached out to put an arm around her shoulders on instinct and pull her closer.

“Preaching to the choir, mama,” he told her easily, looking down at Parker with sad eyes.

“Yeah.” Eliot nodded, looking from Parker to the pointless ‘Get Well Soon’ teddy bear in his hands.

Not being able to help her was killing him, and any small way they tried to make this better, they all knew it was never going to work in reality. They could do so many things, right so many wrongs, but in this situation, none of their skills could save the day. They were not doctors, and even medical experts could not help Parker until she could help herself. Her eyes had to open, there had to be a change. Until then, it was purely a waiting game.

“Did anyone talk to a doctor today? asked Hardison then. “Ask if there’s been any progress?”

“Pretty sure there hasn’t,” said Eliot, reaching for the clipboard on the end of Parker’s bed and flipping through the charts.

“Yeah, well, no disrespect, man, but you ain’t a doctor,” the hacker pointed out, going straight for the door to find said medical professional.

Nate took the opportunity to leave too, and Sophie wasn’t far behind. Being here was just too painful right now. At least if they found a doctor there was a chance of good news. A slim chance, but a chance none the less.

Eliot was the last to leave. Silently, he walked up to the head of the bed and tucked the tiny bear into Parker’s side, letting her arm keep it there. Leaning over, he dropped a kiss on her forehead and then followed his team.

Barely a minute after her room had emptied out, Parker’s body spasmed and her eyes shot open. No sooner had the machines wired to the young woman considered reacting than she was gone again, as still as ever she had been, as if nothing had happened at all.

* * *

“And I don’t exactly want to go back there. I mean, what if I can wake up but that’s all I can do? It felt weird there, like my body didn’t even want to move. That’s pretty scary, but then if I stay here, does that mean I die in the other place?”

Parker stared down at the stuffed bunny she was hugging in her lap, as if waiting for him to answer her, something he was never going to do, of course. She had friends and family here, more than she ever thought possible, but in this case they were of no use to her. If she tried to tell them she had come from another world, they would think she was more than crazy, they’d call her certifiable and want to lock her away! No, she had to deal with this alone, she realised, all alone except for Bunny, who had always been there for her. If only he could give her the advice she really needed. Instead, their conversation was entirely one-sided as she pulled her legs up under her on her teenage-self’s bed and sighed.

“If I stay here, well, it’s not going to be the same. I mean, right now we’re pulling a con on Damien Moreau, and that’s great, but when it’s done... well, I’m not even sure if the team will still hang out together. I’ll have Eliot, I like that. I kinda wish he liked me that way in the other place. He might, I don’t know, I never asked. He doesn’t really seem to have a type of girl he likes best, except they’re usually thin, and pretty, and bendy... Hmm, maybe I am his type.”

Shifting to flop down on her stomach, Parker propped her chin on one hand and gave Bunny a contemplative look, adjusting one ear on the toy rabbit that flopped at a strange angle compared to the other.

“So, if Eliot likes me in that world the same way he does here, and the team will stick together there when they won’t here, and high school can’t last forever anywhere... I guess I should go back,” she considered carefully.

“Plus, if staying here means I die there, then there is no choice anymore, not ever. I don’t know if I can really give up the world I knew so long forever, Bunny, no matter how much fun high school is.”

The cell phone in Parker’s back pocket vibrated then, taking her attention, and she shifted to sit up, taking her cell out to see who had messaged her. She smiled when she saw it was Sophie and hit the button to read the text.

“She wants me to go dress shopping for Homecoming,” Parker told Bunny. “That’s nice, I guess, that she would think of me, but yuck! I hate shopping!” she declared, texting back just exactly those words, however thoughtless they might seem - Sophie would understood, she always did.

Parker got to thinking then, now about how much she disliked shopping, but about how much she loved the idea of going to Homecoming. It was similar to Prom, and there was no way she could stay here until May for that. It was just six days until the Homecoming Dance, she was sure she could fight the sensation of being dragged back to ‘reality’ until then.

Weighing it up in her mind, Parker had soon quite decided she simply had to stay until after the dance, then the next time she got one of those weird dreams or funny seizures that sent her back to a hospital bed, she wouldn’t fight it.

Going back wouldn’t be easy, she would probably find herself in no fit state for any kind of fun for a while, but her friends would be there, they would take care of her. They were getting pretty good at looking out for each other lately, and besides, all those sad faces and tears she had seen, Parker realised now how much her friends must be worried about her.

“It’ll just be for another week, Bunny,” she told him then, stuffing her cell back in her pocket. “Which means I will need something to wear for Homecoming, I guess,” she sighed, looking towards her closet, already knowing nothing suitable existed inside.

“Ooh, I have the perfect idea!” she said then with a grin, pulling Bunny close to whisper her plan under one of his floppy long ears.


	13. Chapter 13

Parker had a plan. She liked her plan, because it would be fun and daring, and because after it was complete she would be able to look perfect for the Homecoming dance that she would attend with Eliot in just a couple of days time.

It was kind of a fluke situation. She had checked out the school buildings from all angles since she started at Leverage High a few weeks ago, and that included an in-depth sweep of the air vents. Through one particular hatch she had spotted an array of very odd clothing, and had dropped down into what turned out to be the Drama Club store room to investigate. It was amongst all these crazy outfits that she found one beautiful dress. Parker wasn’t much for girly clothes, she mostly wore black for anything stealthy, and simple jeans and checked shirts and such when she was relaxing. Dresses were no good for cons, but they were necessary for school dances, that much she knew. If she had to have a dress, she wanted a perfectly perfect one, and the one that stuck in her head was the beautiful red number in the Drama Club’s stores.

It was early yet, the first bell wouldn’t ring for fully ten minutes, and she was right above the closet now. She wanted to come sooner, when she first had the plan, but knew the sooner she stole the dress the longer she would have for it to be discovered missing later. Better to leave it as long as possible.

Parker thought maybe it might have been better to do this at night or at least earlier in the morning, but she knew she would never get away with that either. Archie taught her almost everything she knew, he would hear her escape out of her window after dark, and would be suspicious if she wanted to leave for school way too early. Ten minutes early was all she could afford, but that was okay. She already figured out that she could get the dress, stuff it in the empty locker below hers, and make it to her first class in seven minutes thirty three seconds, no more and no less.

With a grin, she swung down from the air vent and landed silently on both feet. She remembered the exact location of the dress and went straight to the rack, parting a boys sailor suit from a chicken costume, and there it was, all red and glittery and just as perfect as she remembered. Parker didn’t worry about whether the dress would fit or not, she just thought it must do. She was skinny, it was pretty narrow, it’d be fine. She stuffed the dress inside her jacket, used the cabinet a few feet away to lever herself up, and flipped effortlessly back into the vents. Two lefts, one right, straight on past the next three junctions, and then drop down into the girls bathroom - it was child’s play and Parker was practically dancing with joy at her success as she hurried out of the door a few minutes later.

Just a few feet from her locker, she could literally see it from here, and the whole plan fell apart. A guy was walking by the girls bathroom as Parker came out and they collided, her falling spectacularly on her butt, and exposing part of the red dress from inside her jacket.

“Dammnit,” she cursed, trying to tuck it back in which only made more of it fall out of the bottom onto the floor.

“Hey, that’s from the Drama departments wardrobe!” a yell went up and Parker felt sick and panicked.

She planned to run, but getting to her feet seemed to take forever, and suddenly everyone was in her way. A teacher blocked her path around the very next turn and she bit her lip as she gazed up at him, all glowery eyes and folded arms.

“Hey, Mr Bonnano.” She smiled as sweetly as she could.

She already knew he heard everything, saw everything. Oh yeah, she was in trouble.

* * *

Parker was not happy. In all this time, her High School experience had been every kind of fun. She had her friends here, she had her family to go home to, and her team were in the process of bringing down Damien Moreau. On top of that, she was going to attend a Homecoming Dance, the closest she was ever going to get to a Prom, and Eliot was going to be her date. All she needed was to get away with ‘borrowing’ the perfect Homecoming dress from the Drama Club’s supply closet, but no. Somebody saw her, and they made a fuss about it, and the next thing she knew Mr Bonnano was giving her detention and taking her dress away!

Now here she sat at a desk, arms folded across her chest, ten minutes after the bell had rung for the end of the school day. She was stuck here for an hour, and would be again tomorrow. The only saving grace was they couldn’t extend her punishment any further since she planned to be gone the next night, right after Homecoming.

It was weird to think she could just decide when she wanted to leap between worlds. Parker found it very odd and still wasn’t totally sure she knew how this was all happening. If she was in hospital in what she saw as the real world, then this had to be some kind of dream and yet it was so very real. Parker had pinched herself at regular intervals the past few days to test the theory, she even pinched Archie and Frankie for good measure, but everyone seemed perfectly solid, not dream-like at all.

The door opened then, and Parker pulled herself up in her seat, sure the teacher presiding over detention was entering. She got a surprise when she realised that said teacher was bringing a friend.

“Eliot,” she gasped at the sight of him, his hair all messed up and cuts on one set of knuckles.

“Sit!” Mr Stark ordered the teen hitter, and though he looked none too pleased about it, Eliot dropped down into the seat two over from Parker. “Okay, you two stay in these seats, in silence,” he told them sternly. “I will be back in less than five minutes.”

The moment the teacher closed the door, Parker turned in her seat to look properly at Eliot, even as he flipped off the retreating form of Mr Stark.

“What happened to you?” she asked, staring at the bloody knuckles he was now wiping on his shirt.

“You should see the other guy.” He grinned. “Y’know the ass that you bumped into, that yelled to the whole frickin’ school about you stealing the dress?” he said to Parker. “He won’t do that again,” he said definitely.

Parker took a moment to realise what he was saying. A grin spread across her lips when she realised the truth. Eliot had beaten the guy up, some person she could barely name that had caused trouble for her.

He was bleeding and bruised but smiling all the same because he got her a little justice. It didn’t get her out of detention, but still it meant the world to Parker that she mattered that much. Without a thought in her head, she launched herself out of her seat and into Eliot’s arms, an awkward manoeuvre when he was still sitting. She was practically in his lap as she hugged him tight as anything and felt his strong reassuring arms wrap around her too.

“Thank you,” she said solemnly in his ear. “For caring that much.”

“’Course I care, darlin’,” he promised her, his voice soft in her ear. “Always”.

Parker had to hope that was true, that the ‘always’ he spoke of referred not just to this world where they attended High School but way beyond, to the other life she was going to have to go back to before long. In all these dreams she’d had before, that she now realised must have been real visits to ‘reality’, Eliot was there a lot and always being so sweet to her. He had to care about her as much there as he did here. They were the same people after all, just younger looking. It couldn’t end badly, she was slowly starting to believe that. She just had to get to the Homecoming Dance, complete the con, everything would be perfect.

“Parker! Eliot!” Mr Stark snapped at them as he returned to the room, and the couple parted even more quickly than they had come together.

They were ordered to be silent, to read or study, anything that was quiet and productive. Parker sighed, opened up her sketch pad and started drawing. There was no point in completing homework that needed to be submitted next week, she wouldn’t be here then, at least that was the plan. Besides, she liked to draw. She sketched a picture of Mr Stark, adding devil horns and a tail to the teacher she saw as evil. Then she turned the page and started a new picture, not really aware of what she was doing until suddenly she looked down and saw a perfect representation of Eliot looking back at her, not as he looked here in her High School fantasy world, but as he was back home.

These versions of her friends were great, but they weren’t for real, and it became a little clearer to Parker every day. She knew she had made the right decision in deciding to go ‘home’, but she didn’t regret for a moment that she was sticking around for Homecoming, it was a dream she was not willing to give up, no matter how selfish it may seem.

She suddenly blinked when a folded piece of paper laded in the centre of her sketch pad. Parker looked sideways at Eliot but he was still reading his book as if nothing had happened. Stark was intently marking papers and hadn’t even flinched. In silence, Parker opened the note in her lap and read words she knew had been written in the young hitter’s hand.

‘If you needed a dress, I could’ve helped you out with buying one. You only had to ask.’

Parker smiled at how sweet that was, before scribbling a response underneath his words, refolding the note, and deftly tossing it back to Eliot, without ever being seen.

‘That’s sweet, thank you, but I wanted the red one. It was perfect,’ he read in Parker’s writing below his own.

A moment later, the paper was back in Parker’s hands and she was grinning all over again as she read the new text.

‘We can do that.’

* * *

Parker wasn’t too worried about telling Archie she had gotten detention today. She was certain when she told him it wasn’t her fault he would accept it easily and she wasn’t wrong. She spent some time with Frankie, helping him with his math homework, and then they sat down for dinner. Archie asked if she was okay because it was strange she hadn’t disappeared off to her room or gone to see her friends at McRorys this evenings, but Parker told him she was fine.

“I just wanted to spend some time with you guys is all.

Of course she knew why they found her behaviour strange, why Frankie had looked at her so oddly when she gave him an impromptu hug and everything. She wasn’t much for family, the Leverage team and these two people she was sat with now being the closest she ever came at different times in her life. Right now, Parker was overly aware of the fact that she couldn’t be here much longer, and whilst she might one day stumble across Archie again in the ‘real’ world, Frankie would be gone for good when she opened her eyes to the hospital room and the version of her team she left behind a few weeks ago now.

“You sure you’re okay, kiddo?” Archie checked, when a knock on the door sent his ‘son’ scampering to see who was there.

Parker opened her mouth to answer, so very close to telling him what she really thought was happening to her, however strange it sounded or crazy it made her. She never got the chance to say anything as Frankie yelled her name, stating her boyfriend was here. Parker flew off the stool and out into the hall, hoping Archie wouldn’t follow. She really didn’t want to explain Eliot to her ‘father’, that would be awkward.

“Go away!” she yelled at Frankie when he stood grinning at her in the hall.

The flash of anger in her eyes was enough to make him bolt, though he was laughing all the way, childishly singing about Parker and Eliot being in a tree. Clearly he had asked the older boy his name, and decided rightly or wrongly he was his sister’s boyfriend. Parker would have argued except she suddenly seemed to realise the term was pretty much correct.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Eliot then, perhaps rather more abruptly than she meant to or was necessary.

“I, er... I came to give you something,” he explained, looking almost strangely nervous, something Parker hardly ever saw in the hitter in her other world.

Parker barely had time to think about that when suddenly Eliot took his arms from behind his back and revealed the very red dress she had earlier stolen and then lost.

“I, er... I woulda charmed the drama teacher myself, but given he’s a guy, I had a little talk with Sophie,” he smiled as he gave his explanation and watched Parker’s eyes go wide and her lips curve up into a grin. “You happy, sweetheart?” he asked her then, already sure he was right.

Parker just nodded madly, happy tears welling in her eyes as she flung herself into Eliot’s arms, expertly lifting the dress out of his hands at the same time. It was a toss up whether she was really hugging him or the Homecoming outfit, but that was okay. She was happy, that was all that mattered to Eliot and it thrilled Parker to know it, more than she would ever be able to explain.


	14. Chapter 14

Eliot got a few feet from Parker’s room and stopped walking. It was becoming impossible, coming back here day after day, just for nothing at all to happen. He tried talking to her about anything and everything, but to no avail. She just laid there motionless, helpless, wasting away, with no real sign of change. That wasn’t strictly true, the doctor had said there were a few blips in the chart lately, enough that it couldn’t be passed off as an anomaly anymore. Three times it had happened, but there were a multitude of reasons for the shift. It could mean Parker was getting closer to waking up, but by the same token, it could mean something much worse.

With a sigh Eliot looked back down the corridor and honestly considered leaving. He wondered if it was fair to Parker to walk away, but then it didn’t feel fair to him to keep putting himself through this punishment. She wouldn’t know the difference if he skipped out on the visit today,

“Excuse me, sir?” said a voice then and Eliot looked down to see a little girl stood beside him. “Are you lost?” she asked him.

The irony of a small child trying to help him find his way rather than the usual other way round was not lost on Eliot. The kid was blonde and cute as a button, making him think Parker must’ve looked similar at the age of no more than seven.

“I’m not lost, sweetheart, I’m, just...” he trailed off when he realised he didn’t know what else to tell her. “Are you lost?” he checked then, wondering if that was why she asked.

The child shook her head, making her pigtails swing around madly.

“No, sir,” he assured her. “I know my way around real well,” she smiled, hitching herself up onto one of the chairs that were dotted up and down the hallway.

Eliot wasn’t sure what to make of her matter of fact attitude or her apparent familiarity with the hospital. He certainly didn’t like leaving her alone out here when she was so young and all.

“You mind if I sit down there with you, ma’am?” he asked her as politely as she had spoken to him.

“Sure.” She nodded, giggling sweetly. “But I’m not a ma’am; I’m Becca,” she told him.

“Well, I’m not much for being called sir either,” he admitted. “My name’s Eliot.”

“Eliot,” she rolled the name around her tongue and then smiled. “That’s a nice name. Are you here because you’re sick?” she asked then, bouncing from one thing to another without a moments pause as small children were wont to do.

“No, I’m not sick,” he told her. “I, er... I’m visiting a friend of mine, down the hall,” he pointed towards Parker’s room and Becca nodded solemnly.

“That’s the pretty blonde lady, isn’t it?” she checked. “I miscounted the doors last week when I came down here and I saw her. Has she been asleep a long time?” the little girl checked.

“Yeah, too long,” Eliot told her. “Why are you here, Becca?” he asked then, sure if they kept on talking about Parker this way he was going to wind up making a fool of himself by crying all over the sweet little kid.

“My brother is sick,” she explained, looking somewhat less bright, though her legs kept on kicking back and forth in her seat. “He’s sick a lot, and Mommy and Daddy yell at him because they say it’s his fault, but Stevie can’t help it. I heard him say he’s fixing it, but the fixes seem to make him worse. Do you understand that?”

Eliot opened his mouth to speak an then closed it again fast. Yeah, he understood. Becca’s older brother was a drug addict who’s fix was sometimes a step too far. He OD-ed, he landed up in hospital, and this little kid had to sit out in the hall whilst Mom and Dad tore strips off their eldest for his destructive behaviour. It was an unholy mess for a little girl to be caught up in, and Eliot felt awful for the poor kid, but what could he do?

“I’m sure he’ll be all better soon,” he told the kid, hoping he wasn’t giving her false hope.

Before he had a chance to think about it too much more, Becca spoke up again.

“What’s the blonde lady’s name?” she asked in earnest.

“Parker,” Eliot smiled. “She’s my crazy Parker.”

“Are you married?” the little girl asked what seemed like an obvious question for her, and looked all kinds of confused when Eliot laughed out loud.

“No, honey, we’re not married,” he told her, “but I do love her,” he said aloud, for perhaps the first time ever, astounding himself.

He barely noticed how much he had thrilled Becca who clapped her hands delightedly. Love was a beautiful thing when you were seven, he figured. No complications of relationships or anything, just fairytale stories and happily ever afters. It didn’t look quite the same when you were all grown up.

“If you love her, you should kiss her,” Becca advised sagely. “When the prince kisses the princess, she always wakes up. That’s just the way it works.”

“Well, Parker ain’t exactly a princess, Becca,” he told her shaking his head. “And, er... I’m about as far from bein’ a prince as I can be,” Eliot sighed, running a hand back through his hair.

“She’s pretty like a princess,” Becca said thoughtfully, “and you’re handsome enough to be a prince,” she considered, blushing a little when he thanked her for the compliment and smiled in such a way as to melt the heart of any female, be they young or old.

Becca’s mother appeared from the door beside their seats then, telling her they were getting ready to leave so she should come say goodbye to her brother. Eliot watched the little girl go, waving back at her when she said goodbye. She was a sweet kid and she meant well, but Eliot was much too old and wise for fairytales. It would be wonderful to think one simple kiss would wake Parker from her comatose state, but that kind of thing didn’t work in reality.

* * *

Parker could not stop smiling. She stood before the mirror in her room, all dressed up in the beautiful red dress that was just perfect for Homecoming, her hair curled and styled, and shoes borrowed from Sophie that she had been practising walking in for the past two days. This was what she wanted so badly, a school dance where she could feel and act like a princess. High School had been fun, the classes and the friends and the whole experience, but it was the dance she wanted most. It was the perfect way to end her fantasy, though her smile faltered a little when she reminded herself that this must indeed be the end.

There had been three occasions in the past couple of days when she opened her eyes to that hospital room. She had been less scared because she at least understood a little more what was happening, but still she fought to stay here just a little longer, just for tonight.

“Just for the dance, then I’ll go,” she told her reflection, recalling Sophie’s tears in one brief flash to ‘reality’ and such a look of sadness and concern on Eliot’s face on another occasion.

She could not keep giving them false hope with her tiny moments of wakefulness. Just tonight, then she would go home to them, and everything would be okay. She hoped rather than believed it was that simple.

“Parker?” Archie called from the bottom of the stairs. “Sweetheart, your young man is here to take you to the dance,” he told her.

“I’m coming!” she yelled back, grabbing up her purse and rushing to the stairs, faltering just a little as her stiletto heels grabbed at the carpet pile.

She began her descent of the stairs as gracefully as she could, thinking of all the High School movies she watched as she did so. The look on the guys face when he saw his date all dressed up for Prom or Homecoming or whatever dance it was, it always made Parker laugh. They looked so stunned that a girl could be pretty, but why would they have asked them to a dance in the first place if they didn’t think they were attractive? Yet, Parker didn’t feel like laughing at all as she turned the corner mid-way in the stairs and looked down at Eliot when she heard him gasp. He looked stunned about her beauty, but also kind of proud of her in a weird way. She didn’t really understand it, but she liked it all the same, especially when he smiled that rarely seen genuine Eliot smile that she loved so much.

“You look beautiful, darlin’,” he told her. “Pretty as a picture.”

She opened her mouth to thank him, but stopped short when she heard Frankie fake gagging in the doorway to the living room. Maybe she should have been mad at him, but she wasn’t. There was every chance that Parker would feel reality pulling her back before this night was over, a real possibility that she would leave without ever seeing her dear brother again. It was with tears in her eyes that she approached him, and the boy looked genuinely surprised when instead of an attack he got a big old hug from his sister.

“I love you, you know that, don’t you?” she whispered as she held on tight.

“Sure, yeah,” he replied awkwardly. “You too, sis,” he promised.

Parker was smiling again when they parted and she ran to hug Archie just as tight.

“Thank you, for everything,” she told him solemnly. “I wouldn’t be me without you.”

“My pleasure, kiddo,” he assured her as he hugged her back. “But come on now, you’ve got a dance to get to. Your young man here is getting impatient,” he nodded towards Eliot who shifted awkwardly by the front door.

“Let’s go,” said Parker as she turned to him and took a hold of the hand he offered her and they left for Leverage High.

* * *

“And when the Doc said he thought maybe you were close to coming back to us, well, I wanna think that’s a good thing,” said Eliot, sat by Parker’s bed and gripping her pale hand between his own. “Then I start to wonder if it’s all just wishful thinking, since I’m here every day and... and you never open your eyes for me.”

Eliot was feeling sorry for himself and he knew it. In some strange way he almost thought Parker was staying comatose in his company on purpose. He knew that was ridiculous, just as his thinking she could really hear him telling her all this crap was too far fetched to be believed. He’d been knocked out enough times to know that almost never happened. You were out cold to the world and didn’t know any of what was happening out there, only inside your head where there might be a dream, a nightmare, or just an unholy struggle to get back to where you came from. Eliot hoped that if Parker was dreaming it was something good, just not so good she didn’t want to wake up from it.

“Darlin’ you have no idea what this is doing to all of us, to the team,” he told her too softly. “I know you’re probably mad at me for letting you drive, or maybe you’re not. I’m kinda mad at me for that but... but me feeling guilty isn’t helping, and I know that,” he sighed.

He looked up to her closed eyes in her blank face and hated how pale she looked. Not that Parker was exactly the kind to be tanned or covered in make-up, but the lack of colour in her cheeks was almost painful to see after too many weeks lying unconscious in this hospital bed.

The situation was becoming desperate. The longer she lay here, the more chance that she wouldn’t come around, and even if she did there could be untold damage to her brain. Best case scenario and she came back okay, her body would be temporarily useless since it had been given no real exercise for the better part of two months.

“Y’know, I got talkin’ to this kid in the hall. She looked a little like you probably did at that age.” Eliot smiled slightly then. “She, er... she was tellin’ me she thought you were pretty like a princess, and I should act like a prince and... and wake you up with a kiss,” he said, looking seriously at her.

There was no way he would have mentioned kissing in front of an awake Parker. Honestly, a small part of him wondered if just saying such a thing now would bring her round with the shock. Eliot wasn’t blind to Parker’s beauty or her sweetness. She was a nice girl, too nice and good for him, but he had thought about her in ways a man thought about a woman. He always figured if she was going to go for any guy that way, it’d be Hardison, and yet the rest of the team all seemed to have noticed that Eliot had feelings for Parker, and they weren’t all that surprised. Whether she had any idea was a whole other question, and the answer seemed highly likely to be no.

* * *

Parker could hardly believe it when she first walked into the school gym and saw how beautiful it looked. It might have been fairyland the way it was decorated, all twinkling lights and crepe paper in every pretty colour imaginable.

All eyes turned to look at Parker and Eliot when they walked in hand in hand, Sophie and Nate right behind them, and Hardison and his date bringing up the rear. For once, Parker didn’t mind the attention so much, and barely noticed it at all when Eliot swept her out onto the dancefloor and into his arms.

Though the three couples danced and mingled and such as the night went on, they were always very aware of who else was present in the gym. The principal and vice-principal, several members of the school board, and quite a few parents playing chaperones. Damien Moreau himself was even here with a beautiful Italian date that looked less than impressed to be on his arm somehow, but stayed there anyway. Hardison had switched the discs as needed, when the screen was put up and the footage from the football game shown, it would break a minute or so into the action, instead showing the evidence of all Moreau’s worst schemes.

For now though, Parker wasn’t really thinking about that. She was just enjoying this last night that she had dreamed of so long.

“This is perfect,” she said without thinking, and Eliot smiled at that.

“Couldn’t get much better,” he agreed, as they swayed together in the middle of the dancefloor. “We won the game, we’re about to bring down Moreau once and for all,” he whispered, “and I’ve got the prettiest girl in school right here in my arms,” he told her seriously.

Parker was very nearly floored by the intense look in his eyes then. She was sure without Eliot’s arms around her she would have completely fallen over from the force of it. Still, she didn’t want to move, she didn’t want to break this moment, and when Eliot moved in for a kiss she forced herself not to panic...

“Hey, everybody!” a smiley girl on the stage suddenly yelled and the music was gone in an instant.

Parker was sure she heard Eliot growl as everyone was urged to turn towards the stage. She might have giggled at his anger at not getting the chance to kiss her, but honestly she was just a little too surprised right now. Not just because Eliot seemed to be mad about not getting to kiss her yet, but because the girl on the stage looked decidedly like a slightly younger version of Cora McRory.

“First of all, congratulations to the Leverage Wolves on their excellent win in the Homecoming game!” she announced, at which the entire gym erupted into cheers and applause, interspersed with specific whistles and calls at ‘Spencer’ in particular - Parker was so proud of Eliot then.

The screen that dominated much of the back wall behind the make-shift stage then lit up, and the members of team Leverage shared sideways glances as the movie clips began to play. A perfect pass between Eliot and another player on the football team, an excellent touchdown, and then the picture began to break up and scroll. Before anyone had a chance to investigate, the footage of Moreau was there for all to see, his voice loud and clear through the sound system speakers all around the gym. Parker wanted to see him react but hardly dare turn her head. She leant into Eliot instead and peeked over his shoulder just in time to see Moreau’s eyes grow wide as he shared a panicked look with his friends and his uncle, the Principal.

The next few moments happened in a deliberate rush as security, at the instruction of teachers and schoolboard members, began removing Damien and all the friends of his that were visible on the screen, from school property. They were going to be dealt with, them and the Principal himself apparently as the head of the schoolboard himself led the older man out. Parker hadn’t noticed until that moment just how much the schoolboard’s chairman looked like Agent Taggart.

“Okay, that was... not planned,” said Cora from the stage, trying to bring some calm back to proceedings. “Time to move on.” She giggled, clearly feeling awkward. “So, let’s announce the Homecoming King and Queen.”

That was met with rapturous applause as an envelope was handed over, and other people appeared on the stage carrying a crown meant for a boy and a tiara for a girl. Parker looked at Sophie. She was sure the young grifter would win Homecoming Queen, after all she was beautiful and smart and everything, just about everybody liked her. Maybe Nate would get King since he was her date, though Parker wasn’t sure if it worked that way exactly.

“Okay, Leverage High.” Cora smiled ever more widely if it were possible as she pulled the card with the winners names out of the envelope. “Our Homecoming King for 2010 is... Eliot Spencer!”

The whooping and calling was deafening, as Eliot laughed in disbelief, letting his hand slip from Parker’s as he headed up into the stage. She wasn’t surprised he won. He was the star quarterback and well liked by his fellow guys and more so by the girls. She was proud of him, she couldn’t take her eyes off him, hell, she was pretty sure she was in love with him, even though Parker wasn’t overly sure she understood exactly what such a thing entailed.

“And our 2010 Homecoming Queen is... Parker!” announced Cora, much to the astonishment of the girl herself.

Nobody reacted to the fact she had only one name, nobody booed or hissed, not even the bitchy girls who really had not liked her before. All Parker could see was Eliot gesturing for her to join him on stage, all she heard was Hardison yelling, and Nate whistling, and Sophie applauding. It was ridiculously loud and overwhelming, and yet Parker didn’t feel the need to run, just to get to Eliot as fast as possible. He looked kind of dorky in the king’s plastic crown, and she was sure she would look equally as silly when they put the tacky tiara on her head, but that didn’t matter. This was one of those perfect moments she never had when she was younger and whilst she had it now she was going to enjoy it, knowing it could not last very long.

“Didn’t see that coming.” Eliot smiled as he pulled her into an embrace.

“I did,” she whispered as Cora announced that the King and Queen were to have a spotlight dance.

The dancefloor cleared a space and Eliot led Parker down the steps from the stage into the middle of the floor. The room was pretty dark, Parker could see nothing but Eliot in the spotlight that shone sown so brightly on their heads. They began to sway to the slow song and all around them the tapping of feet and rustling of material proved so many other couples were joining in the dance too. Parker was lost in the moment, drowning in Eliot’s intense blue eyes, happy and sad all at the same time because this was just exactly what she wanted and so close to being over all at once.

“You okay, darlin’?” asked Eliot then, holding Parker close. “Or maybe I should call you princess, since that’s what you look like right now,” he smiled.

“If I’m the princess that makes you the prince, and this whole thing must be a fairytale,” said Parker, too caught up in the moment to realise they were actually the King and Queen.

When Eliot leaned in closer this time, Parker found she was leaning too, her eyes closing right before their lips met in a sweet kiss that soon turned passionate.

Parker could feel everything and yet nothing, sure the floor had gone out from underneath her feet as she fell into the moment and got lost in the best kiss of her life.

A few moments later a loud beeping in her ears made her eyes shoot open. Eliot was still right there with his arms around her, but the world was no longer as it should be.


	15. Chapter 15

Parker felt beyond disorientated as she came back to reality with Eliot’s lips on hers. It wasn’t a bad feeling, far from it, but odd to suddenly be back here where she had started from so many weeks ago.

“Wow,” she gasped in air as they parted, staring up into Eliot’s startled blue eyes.

“Parker,” he wasn’t sure why he said her name, it wasn’t like he expected her to turn into anybody else, but the fact that kissing her really had seemed to bring her round was extraordinary to say the least.

‘Hospital, okay,’ she thought looking left and right, trying not to panic. ‘That’s what I figured...’

It was only then that Parker realised she wasn’t saying any of this as she had assumed. Her vocal chords seemed to have seized and she seriously could not decide if it was the shock of being kissed by this version of Eliot or a consequence of her not moving around so much in this reality.

Eliot still looked pretty happy she was back, even if she wasn’t talking. She stared up at the smile on his face and just really wanted him to kiss her again or even just hold her maybe. Instead he seemed to be running away, which almost had her panicked until he returned with a doctor in tow, telling her how wonderful it was to see her and all. The only thing frustrating Parker was that she felt like she couldn’t move and knew that she couldn’t speak yet. Not quite two months away and her body felt useless to her. She was so tired, so stupidly sleepy for a person who had apparently been asleep in this world the whole entire time. Her eyes started to slide shut, but there was no High School world behind her lids this time around, she was just sleeping like a normal person and knew she would be back with Eliot and her team again before long. Though she could manage nothing else right now, Parker was at least smiling as she drifted off.

“No, no, it’s okay,” said the doctor, looking oddly pleased when Parker seemed to slip back into an unconscious state.

He assured Eliot this time the little thief was only sleeping, and would be just fine. It was all a good sign, and yet Eliot felt like he was going to cry for the first time in more years than he could count. Parker was alive and conscious. She was going to be okay. The shock and the relief combined was enough to almost knock him clean off his feet.

“Was there anything specific that woke her?” asked the doctor curiously as Eliot just stood there staring at Parker with a grin on his face.

“Er... yeah,” he admitted, shaking himself momentarily out of a daze. “I kissed her,” he said, without even thinking.

He didn’t notice the odd look the doctor shot him, after all the medical staff had been told that Eliot was Parker’s brother. Perhaps it was just best not to question the nature of said kiss and be glad another patient had lived through some serious head trauma!

* * *

When Parker awoke the next time after a restful sleep, she found the whole team gathered around her bed. In the circumstances, it seemed the two visitors at a time rule had been lifted, and there was Eliot, Hardison, Sophie, and Nate, all smiling down at her, talking at once about how glad they were to have her back. Parker was glad to be back and managed to croak out half the words she meant to say before coughing.

Immediately, Eliot was there with a cup of water, guiding the straw to her lips. It helped a lot more than Parker thought it might, and she proudly spoke like a tiny child who just learnt how.

“Hey, guys.” She smiled. “Did you miss me?”

“Miss you?” Sophie echoed with tears running down her cheeks. “Parker, you’ve no bloody idea!” she exclaimed, moving to hug the poor girl tight.

Parker never even flinched, not because she couldn’t but just because she didn’t feel the need to. She had missed her team too. Their high school counterparts were all well and good but never quite the same. Besides, that world wasn’t entirely real, not like this place. Here she was sure of herself and of her friends who cared so much about her.

“You gave us a pretty good scare, mama,” Hardison told her then.

“Yes, that’s true,” Nate agreed.

Eliot was quiet, almost too quiet. Not that he was usually a chatty person, but Parker had got so used to being close to him in her other world. He always seemed to want to hold her hand and stuff. Now he was hovering in the back, not even speaking to her. He couldn’t know how close they had been in that other place, as high school kids, and if she tried to tell him, well, he’d probably end up thinking she was even more crazy than before. Still, he had kissed her here just as he had there in the gym at the Homecoming Dance, and it had woken her up. That had to mean something.

Thinking about it so hard made her face frown without Parker really noticing it and tears come to her eyes that made no sense to anyone. They were worried about her, the whole team had fear etched on their faces when she looked so sad and scared. Sophie immediately brought a tissue to the blonde’s face and wiped away the tears.

“Oh, sweetie, don’t cry,” she urged her.

“Seriously, mama. You gonna be just fine,” Hardison promised her. “Your body’s just kinda messed up ‘cause you not been movin’ so much these past few weeks.”

“We can help you with that,” Nate assured her. “A little assisted exercise, a proper healthy diet. Y’know, the doctors they, they do know what they’re doing,” he said with a little more confidence than he actually felt in the medical profession. “In a few weeks, you’ll hardly know this coma ever happened.”

Parker didn’t like the sound of that. Sure, the use of her limbs would be great, not feeling like she was strapped down to the bed even when she had free movement would be excellent, but she didn’t want to forget all that she’d seen behind her eyes these past two months together.

It was like a dream come true, even if something bad had to happen to her in order for her to get there. It was so real, so shockingly real that with just a moments concentration Parker could see it all so clearly even now. She could hear her friends cheering and applauding at cheerleader try-outs. She could feel Eliot’s hand around her own as they walked down the halls of the school. She could smell the burgers being cooked and taste the soda she drank out back of the other McRorys.

It was crazy and Parker knew if she tried to explain the doctors would want to lock her in a padded room, and the team would think she’d completely lost it even more than usual. She had to keep it a secret, she had to concentrate on getting her body back to the way it was before, but most of all Parker wanted to concentrate on getting Eliot to like her here as he had in High School. Maybe that was the biggest challenge of all.

* * *

Sophie was just this side of enraged when she came storming into Nate’s apartment, slamming the door behind her.

“You’ve got to be joking!” she yelled at the Mastermind before he ever had a chance to greet her. “You call a meeting now? When Parker’s been awake not even a week?” she challenged him. “How can you be so bloody insensitive?!”

“Er, Sophie, I didn’t call a meeting,” Nate told her with a slight shake of his head.

The grifter visibly deflated as she stood staring him across the kitchen island. It didn’t make any sense, she had a text message on her phone calling her here for a meeting, it had to be for a con. She turned slowly to look at Hardison sat at his desk and glared at the hacker.

“Oh, no! No way, mama, not me. Uh-uh,” he shook his head, hands raised in apparent surrender. “I didn’t send no messages, I just got the same one you did,” he came over with cell phone in hand to show her.

With the three of them here and Parker not being discharged any time soon, that only left one suspect. As if he heard his name echoing from their minds, the door opened then and Eliot came striding in with a purpose.

“Good, y’all are here,” he said more to himself than to the team as he ushered them over to their usual seats before the big screen.

Nobody could understand what was happening here, and the question was written in three sets of eyes as Eliot came to stand before his friends, arms folded across his chest in his usual habit. This was not going to be a popular speech, but he was going to make it anyway, their thoughts on it be damned. This was about Parker, and he had come to realise she mattered more than anything else to him right now. He had to do this for her sake, he had to.

“So, I talked with Parker’s doctors this morning,” he explained. “They don’t want her to leave the hospital yet because she still needs professional help with her physical rehab-”

“We know this, Eliot, they told us the same thing yesterday,” confirmed Nate from his place behind the desk, not flinching at all when the hitter glared at him for interrupting.

“Yeah, well, what you don’t know is that I can help her,” the younger man told him firmly. “I can and I’m gonna do it.”

“Wait a second, wait a second,” Hardison cut in this time, waving his hands in a ‘hold up’ kind of a gesture. “You just said she needs professional help,” he over-emphasised the word on purpose. “You’re not-”

“I am,” Eliot snapped. “I’ve had the training, I got the pieces of paper to prove it. I can help Parker get back on her feet, literally,” he explained, eyes scanning back and forth between the three of them, but for the most part landing on Sophie.

The grifter hadn’t spoken yet, she hadn’t given any thoughts or opinions on what was being said. That was odd in itself because she did always like to have her say, especially when she thought she was right. Eliot was almost as good at reading people as she was and yet right now her expression could have meant anything at all.

“You can all tell me how none of this is my fault, but I am responsible for keeping this team safe,” said Eliot firmly, pointing a finger into the edge of the desk. “That’s my job, and I... I failed,” he said, his voice faltering just slightly. “Now I have a chance to help Parker, to get her out of that damn hospital faster, and get her back to the way she used to be before all this crap happened to her,” he explained.

“And what if we disagree?” asked Nate curiously, fingers steepled together as he tried to stare the hitter down - he might have known that wouldn’t work.

“I’m not here to take a vote, Nate,” said Eliot determinedly. “I called ya’ll here ‘cause I wanted you to know where Parker’ll be from now on. I’m taking her to my house outside of town, and I’m gonna get her walking and talking properly and eating right. She’s gonna be how she was, I’m gonna make sure of it”.

There was nothing anybody could really say to that. Arguing would do no good, they all knew it. Eliot had been bearing the burden of letting Parker drive that day that had caused the accident and no matter how many times he was told to let it go he never could. Here was a chance for him to make amends, and nobody really felt the need to stop him. After all, he was good enough to let hem know what was happening, to offer up the address of a house he had kept secret all this time just so they could visit. Not one amongst the three could find a reasonable or even an unreasonable argument against his plan.

“It’s a lot to take on, Eliot,” said Sophie then, the first words she had spoken since he came through the door. “Still, I have complete faith in both you and Parker to see this thtough,” she smiled warmly.

Honestly, Eliot wasn’t overly certain as to what she was telling him here. Something in her expression seemed to lean away from simply confidence in Eliot to get their thief’s body working again. It was almost as if she was telling him she hoped things worked out between the two of them in a way that the hitter couldn’t even consider right now.

“Okay.” He nodded once, his eyes scanning back down the line from Sophie to Nate and finally Hardison. “I’m gonna go pick up Parker this afternoon. Maybe you guys could help with bringing her stuff over to my place? I don’t know how easy its gonna be-”

“We be there.” Hardison nodded immediately. “Whatever you need to get our girl right again, you got it,” he swore with a look that proved his promise and a whole lot more.

All eyes went to Nate then, the one who still hadn’t agreed to this plan. It was happening anyway, they all knew that, Eliot was more than a little determined about it. Still, it would be nice if they were all on the same side, as they should always be.

“Of course,” he agreed with a single nod. “If Parker is happy for you to be her aide for rehab, I can’t think of a better person to do it.”

Eliot wouldn’t let himself smile at getting approval from the three of them. He meant what he said, he was going to do this whether they liked it or not, and he hadn’t actually had to tell them anything about it. It was still better to hear that they understood, that they’d help out if help were needed.

Getting the world's greatest thief back to the way she had been before, it wasn’t going to be easy, but Eliot had realised some time ago there was nothing he wouldn’t do when it came to Parker. Now it was time to prove it.


	16. Chapter 16

Parker wasn’t sure how she felt when the doctor came to talk to her and advised that her brother had volunteered to take her to his home and aid her recovery. It took a minute or two for her brain to unscramble and remember that Sophie had said Eliot was playing the part of brother here, and even so it was lucky they had actually said step-brother - that covered for the way he had woken up his ‘sister’. The kiss they shared was in no way a sibling moment! The thought of it now made Parker feel more alive than she ought to be with four limbs that didn’t want to co-operate. Her body was pretty useless to her still, even after almost a week of carefully assisted exercise and all. It would be a while before she could walk properly, nevermind run and climb, crawl through ventilation shafts and rappel. Still, it meant the world to her when it became clear that Eliot was willing to help her with all of that.

Lying here alone, she had plenty of time to think about her relationship with the hitter. They were friends here, good friends that shared one kiss when she awoke, but nothing more than that yet. In her dream-world, he had pretty much been her boyfriend, but Parker wasn’t sure if that could ever happen in this world. The kiss had to mean something, and she kind of wanted to ask, but since that day she had never been alone with Eliot long enough to do so. Besides, she worried about what his reason might be, if he might lie about it, if the truth might be worse. Maybe it was desperation to have her wake up, maybe it was just supposed to be a friend thing and she was misunderstanding. There was no way to know until she asked, and even when she got the opportunity, Parker wasn’t sure if she would dare.

Parker hated that she couldn’t walk out of the hospital, that she was going to be spending so much time being pushed around in a wheelchair for a while. At least in her high school dream world she could do whatever she wanted. Of course, the damage it had done to her actual body almost wasn’t worth it. It was strange, because she really wouldn’t want to trade the experience she had in what must have been a very vivid coma dream, and yet the consequences of it were almost too much to bear. Maybe this was what they called karma, that she had heard Eliot and Sophie talk about before now. You had to have the bad thing to make up for the good thing. Parker could see how that made sense, to balance out the world, but she still didn’t really think it was fair.

“That’s a real thoughtful expression, darlin’,” said Eliot as they stopped by his truck in the hospital parking lot.

She knew she wouldn’t have to explain herself if she didn’t want to. Talking was still tricky sometimes, like her throat wanted to close up on her, or her tongue forgot how to work right. If Parker just nodded or shrugged slightly, he would accept it and not question her thoughts too much. It worked today as it had yesterday and she was grateful for it, though the look in Eliot’s deep blue eyes as he leant down to her level proved he wasn’t really buying.

“Listen,” he said then, crouching on his haunches and pushing his hair off his face when the wind blew it. “I know this is tough on you. Trust me, I do understand, but I’m gonna help you Parker. I swear to God, I am gonna help you, and you’re gonna be just fine,” he promised.

She did believe him, of course she did, Parker just wasn’t in a fit state to make a speech about it, or fling her arms around him like she wanted to right now. She had to settle for giving him a watery smile and a shaky nod, but it still seemed to please him.

“Okay then, let’s do this,” he told her, opening up the passenger side door. “You understand I gotta do a lot of lifting and stuff with you for a while, right?” he reminded her. “I promise it won’t be for too long. We’ll have you leaping off high rises again before you can say Jack Robinson,” he whispered in her ear as he picked her up out of the chair to deposit her in the truck.

Parker liked the sound of getting back to her old self and fast, but what she liked better was the way Eliot was holding her right now. It didn’t last long, just a brief semi-hug as he swung her from the wheelchair to the truck seat. Just a soon as she was strapped in, he was gone, folding up the chair to put it in the back of the truck. It was good though, she supposed, that they were going to get to spend much time together. If Parker must be dependant on another for a while, she would choose Eliot to be that person. She was sure he wouldn’t baby her or do anything for her she didn’t absolutely need, he would just be there to catch her when she fell, just what she needed, just like always.

* * *

Parker wasn’t surprised that Eliot didn’t talk much on their way to his place. He never was much for being chatty and she suspected he hadn’t a clue what to say to her anyway. She wasn’t wrong. This was the most bizarre situation for either of them to find themselves in. She didn’t know how to be with Eliot since spending so much time with his younger self in her other world, and he didn’t know how to handle this quiet, almost useless version of the animated young woman he had fallen in love with without even noticing.

Having Parker in his house was going to be torture for Eliot and he knew it. Her suffering would be a constant reminder of his failure to protect her, and though he knew he deserved to suffer for that, it didn’t make it any easier to bear. The other problem was his feelings for her. Parker hadn’t a clue that he had come to realise his love for her whilst she was out cold for two months, and now was certainly not the time to tell her. He wondered if any time would be right, given the way she was about men and her limited knowledge of relationships. Not that he was exactly an expert himself. A long string of one-night stands and such stood between his present self and the high school kid that almost married Aimee.

Eliot shook his head to clear the mixed-up thoughts that couldn’t matter right now. The focus had to be Parker’s health, getting her back to the way she was before. Everything else would come after and had to matter just a little less than the primary objective. Pulling up outside his house on the outskirts of town, Eliot looked across at his passenger and saw the giddy smile on her face. Whether she liked the look of his home or was just proud of the fact she had inadvertently found a way to get an invite, he couldn’t be sure, he was just damn glad of the happy expression she wore, and that was good enough.

“The team will be here soon with your stuff,” he explained. “I know you don’t like people messing with your gear and everything. I wouldn’t either, but... well, I didn’t want you to be here too long without the stuff you need or care about.”

She nodded her understanding to that, and Eliot didn’t press her to be verbal yet. He was going to make her try more before long because this silent thing wasn’t helping. She could talk, she’d proven it before, and starting first thing tomorrow, he was going to make sure she did. Being a hard task master to the woman he loved, who could floor him with a sad or scared look at a moment’s notice, that was not going to be easy, but Eliot had no choice if he wanted to see her back to normal, or at least a Parker version of normal anyway.

Parker didn’t say a word or react at all, as Eliot reversed the routine from the hospital car park and brought her inside. There was a ramp to the front door that he must have just put in, and he pointed out that he’d probably have to fix a few other things yet, like temporary rails in the bathroom and such, to accommodate Parker until she had better control of her limbs.

With her wheelchair parked up in the middle of the living room, the world’s greatest thief lifted her aching head to look around, and loved what she saw. This house was Eliot, one hundred per cent truly his, and she would know it anywhere, even though she had never been here before in her life. It was how she imagined his home to be, and she was pleased with the fact she was right. She noted he had lied about not having a TV, and that the kitchen off through the door was big and shiny like all good cooks should have. The leather couches were big brown affairs with plump cushions, and everything was homely and tasteful with a side of style. Parker could be comfortable and happy here, she thought with a grin. It was like living in a big Eliot bubble and in the absence of her own world, this one would do just fine.

“I like it,” she said, without thinking about the fact it was the first she’d spoken all day. “It’s all... Eliot,” she explained badly, but he smiled anyway at the sentiment, at least until she started coughing.

He rushed to fetch her a drink of water and helped her with the straw in the bottle. Parker felt dumb and grateful and a whole bunch of other things she wasn’t used to having to feel over something so simple. This was going to be a long journey, she knew, but she would work hard for both their sakes, for everyone’s sake.

A knock on the front door signalled that the others had arrived, and soon Hardison, Nate, and Sophie were all standing there with boxes of items Parker recognised from her warehouse – a supply of her favourite cereal, her lock picks, a few books, and there on top of the pile of things Sophie held was Bunny. Though it hurt like crazy, she reached out a hand towards the grifter but immediately wished she hadn’t. All Sophie thought was that Parker wanted to talk to her or give her a hug. At least with her coming closer, Parker could get to Bunny at last and pick him awkwardly out of the box.

“I said we should definitely bring this.” Sophie smiled at Parker in such a way as to make her feel like a tiny child.

It was as if she were completely helpless and she hated that. It made her want to cry and scream, to run away, and yet the last of these would be impossible right now, and she knew it.

“Sophie, she’s a grown woman,” Eliot growled somewhat into his words. “She wants the things she knows around her and I get that, but don’t talk to her like she’s five, she’s not,” she told her firmly.

“I wasn’t... I mean, I wasn’t,” the grifter looked awkward as she stood up, glancing between Parker and her friends.

She didn’t know how to handle this anymore than anyone else. This never happened to anyone she loved before, but then she loved so few people, it wasn’t exactly surprising.

“Parker, I’m so sorry,” she told the thief, as the blonde yawned the biggest yawn of her life.

Nate shifted towards the door and gestured for Hardison to follow.

“Maybe we should get the rest of the stuff from the car and then call it a day,” he suggested. “Parker needs rest and we can visit tomorrow or something.”

Hardison agreed with a nod though he didn’t seem eager to go. Eliot noticed and cut in between Mastermind and Hacker.

“Hey, man,” he said to his bro. “How ‘bout you keep Parker company a while?” he suggested. “Let the guys with the muscles do the heavy liftin’,” he teased him, and Hardison smiled in spite of the intended insult.

“You got it, man,” he agreed as they shared their usual high-five fist bump combo and parted ways at the door.

Parker let out a breath she barely knew she’d been holding. Maybe things were going to be okay after all, it was just going to take a little time.

* * *

It wasn’t so very late in the day when the team had gone home and left Parker and Eliot alone in his house. She was still in the wheelchair from the hospital and it was when she was all by herself that Parker really thought about it and hated it. The couch looked comfortable and inviting, but getting from one to the other, such a simple thing, was likely you prove tricky when her limbs didn’t obey her wishes.

Eliot had slipped upstairs to wash up from the fetching and carrying. He said he planned on making them some food after that and Parker didn’t want to disturb him. She had to learn to do things for herself, she had to try. Sitting around waiting for someone else to help did not come naturally and never would. She stared at the couch like it was the enemy and the Holy Grail all at once. If just her arms were useless her legs would still carry her. The other way around and she could have made a good dragging attempt, but as it was she was just helpless.

Parker got a determined feeling inside then, a ball of energy and strength building in her stomach. She thought of so many times when she fought back against the odds, when she ran faster than anyone else, squeezed into gaps no person should attempt, beat down a man twice her size albeit for a second or two. She could do this, of course she could do this.

There was an almighty crash that Parker was sure would be heard for miles, it was so loud as it rang in her ears. It took a moment for the little thief to realise her body hitting the floor had made such an awful sound, and then, before she could consider what hurt and how and why, Eliot was there, cursing the world as a whole as he gathered her up in his arms and laid her carefully on the couch.

“Damnit, Parker!” he said crossly, as he looked down at her, pushing his hair back off his face with both hands. “What the hell were you tryin’ to do?”

She couldn’t answer. There were words right there to be said and she probably could’ve forced them out, but if she tried she knew she would be sobbing in a second. So many parts of her hurt and what didn’t hurt ached and weighed heavy anyway. She hated this, she hated that she couldn’t do all the things she loved, couldn’t even move from one seat to the other without causing a fuss. There were tears in her eyes that ran down her cheeks unchecked and with all the strength she could muster she turned to the side, pushing her face into the cushions to hide.

Eliot felt sick. He shouldn’t yell at Parker, none of this was really her fault. If anything it was his. Even now, he couldn’t help but blame himself for her accident, and for every lousy thing he ever said to her, and for bringing her here to help her then yelling at her when she tried to help herself.

“Parker,” he said as he crouched down beside the couch. “Sweetheart, please, look at me,” he urged her, reaching out to touch her and yet wondering if he should.

After a moment he decided it was better just to leave her as she was. He could at least talk to her and know she was listening this time. It was a step up from her unconscious state, at least.

“Parker, I... I’m sorry,” he told her seriously. “I’m sorry for yelling at you and, more than that, I’m sorry that I let all this happen to you,” he said too softly, hating that he couldn’t be stronger about it, hating that he had anything to apologise for.

If he just took better care of her, if he just made more of an effort before, none of this would’ve happened. Parker would be bouncing off the walls or hanging upside down from the ceiling by now, bugging the hell out of him. He missed that, more than he could ever explain.

“I keep goin’ over it in my head, y’know?” he continued, hoping she was listening even though her face was buried in the cushions still. “Keep thinkin’, if I just took your keys from you or came after you and made you get in the truck so I could drive you home. The whole time you were lying in that hospital bed I just kept coming up with scenarios and ways it all could’ve worked out okay...”

She rolled over then, awkwardly but she managed it. Parker stared up at Eliot with red-rimmed eyes and tear-tracks down her face, so apparently broken, and yet she was the one to comfort him with her words.

“It’s not your fault,” she told him, voice wobbly at best from the strain of speaking as well as the emotion thick in her throat. “I... I don’t blame you,” she swallowed hard before she could get even those few words out, and Eliot hated that she was struggling.

Still, he was grateful for her words. She didn’t blame him, he ought to have known she never would, it just wasn’t the way Parker was. She might be the world’s greatest thief, wanted in more countries than a person would want to count, but in her heart she was a good person. She didn’t want to cause pain, she didn’t want to make enemies, that just wasn’t her. For all the stuff that could drive Eliot crazy, there was more in Parker to love than to dislike, so very much more.

“Help me?” she asked then, as she shifted awkwardly on the couch.

Her strange croak of words pulled Eliot from a moment lost in thought and he reacted immediately, helping her sit up into one seat of the couch and putting himself in the next. She leaned her weight against his side, and his arm automatically went around her, holding her close.

“I’m gonna help you, darlin’,” he repeated his promise, pressing a kiss into her hair without even thinking about it. “We’re gonna get you back to how you were. Same old Parker as before, I promise.”

Parker sighed with relief at the sound of those words. She wanted to be as she was before, and if Eliot made a promise he always kept it. His words was pretty much sacred and she trusted completely that he would help her as much as she needed and succeed in his task of getting her fit and healthy again.

It was strange for Eliot to be this close to Parker. They shared a couch before, they had even hugged once or twice, but nothing like this. She wasn’t really a touchy-feely person with anyone, unless she got pretty drunk or similar, and she rarely allowed herself to lose control in such a way. Eliot wasn’t much for this kind of closeness either, not with the team, not with anyone. The friends in his life understood he liked to keep people at arms length. The women he dated, if you could even call it that, well, they got a different kind of close and then were gone by morning never to be seen again.

Parker was like no-one else in Eliot’s life, and his feelings for her were different than he had ever had for another woman before. He cared about her so much, he could never explain. He loved her, that much was obvious to him now. Holding her in his arms like this made the world feel right somehow, and yet he knew it was the best he was ever going to get. Parker didn’t date, she didn’t understand relationships, hell, when it came to love and romance for the long haul, Eliot really didn’t have much more experience than she did. Apart from Aimee, he was all about being the lone wolf type. A list of conquests was all very well, but it wasn’t happily ever after, not even close.

Of course, Parker wasn’t finding this whole hugging this as strange as she used to, especially since it was Eliot holding onto her. For her it was a dream come true, quite literally. He had held her many times in the high school world she had slipped from all of a week ago. He had danced with her, held her hand when they were walking, and even kissed her right before she fell from the Homecoming Dance back into a hospital bed.

Parker’s eyelids started to droop as she leaned heavily into her Elliot shaped pillow and breathed him in. Coming back to reality, as she assumed this to be, was all well and good, but nowhere had been home to Parker for a good long while. If anywhere was ever going to be a place she belonged, she figured this was it, right here in this moment in the arms of a man she knew she could love somehow, if she was capable of such an emotion. Before she figured that out, Parker knew she had to prove she was capable of so many other things first - talking, walking, functioning like the person she had been before the car wreck that started this whole thing.

Eliot shook himself when he realised how comfortable he was getting here. This was not right and it was not good. Getting close to Parker in any way was not going to help right now. She didn’t need an awkward boyfriend-girlfriend relationship at this point in her life, if ever. She needed a physical therapist, she needed a friend. These were things he had to concentrate on being for as long as it took. His own selfish needs could come later, maybe, and only then if she showed any sign of wanting him to be with her in such a way, which Eliot highly doubted would happen.

“Hey, er... I got something for you,” he said, shifting Parker’s body away a little so he could get up.

She missed the contact the moment he was gone, and stifled a cry because of it. She was being so needy, and Parker hated to realise it. Nobody wanted a clingy girl in their life, even she knew it. Guys ran from that, so did foster parents. She shook her head as much as she was able and tried to push it all out of her head. Her eyes remained closed until Eliot re-entered the room, an enormous cardboard box in his arms. She glanced up then and got a surprise she could have done without.

“I thought maybe these would cheer you up, and y’know, give you something to look at when you’re stuck on the couch.” He smiled some as he parked the box on the coffee table and hooked out some of the contents to show to her.

Parker’s eyes were wide as she realised what he had brought for her. At least forty DVDs that she had lifted weeks ago, all the high school movies she had left scattered in Nate’s apartment before the job, before the car wreck, before everything that led to this moment. She forced a smile and nodded her thanks to Eliot, as he picked out the least girly looking movie and put it on for her. Inside, Parker was crying all over again, but using her well-practised techniques of hiding such emotion. He was trying to be nice, she couldn’t blame Eliot for that, but it did just make her heart ache all the more, thinking of how they’d been together in her own high school world. It was clear to Parker now she couldn’t have that in the real world, as Eliot took the armchair too far from her now and barely even looked her way as the movie started.


	17. Chapter 17

Eliot Spencer did so hate asking for help, and yet in this one thing it had to be done. He was determined to be the one to help Parker through her struggles to get back to what constituted normal for his crazy little thief, but in this particular area it would just be inappropriate.

She smelled like the hospital, which was clean, but not exactly pleasant for a woman who was usually all patchouli and vanilla. If she were anyone else, maybe Eliot could’ve dealt with having to help her shower, but as it was, he just wasn’t prepared to go down that highly inappropriate road right now, so he was calling Sophie.

Parker was flat out on the couch still dreaming. She had fallen asleep on him most of the way through ‘Bring It Back’ or ‘Mean Chicks’ or whatever the hell movie he had put on to cheer her up last night. Eliot had meant to move her, put her in a bed and then go to his own, but she looked so peaceful and he found his own tiredness catching up to him. He was out for the count before long and they had spent the night there on the sofa, until first light came through the picture window and blinded the hitter until he woke.

There was no way Eliot could go for his usual morning run now Parker was here. Instead he retreated to his gym and worked out there, keeping an ear out always for if Parker woke and needed him. She made no sound or movement and he risked jumping in the shower whilst she slept on. He had completed the majority of his early morning routine by now, and had stopped to make his call to the grifter.

“This better be life or death,” said Sophie, sounding decidedly pissed at the early wake up call.

“Mornin’, sunshine.” Eliot smirked into his words so much she could probably hear it. “I was actually gonna ask you for a favour for Parker, but if you’re not up to it...”

“Don’t play those bloody mind games with me, Spencer. I invented them,” she told him, and he could just tell she was now sitting up straight and paying attention because he mentioned the thief. “What does Parker need?”

“Amongst other things, somebody to help her out with taking a bath or somethin’,” he explained, feeling much less cocky and a whole lot awkward by now. “I figure she’s not gonna be comfortable no matter who does it but-”

“What time do you want me there?” Sophie’s question cut him off without further explanation and the hitter was grateful.

“She’s not awake yet and then I wanna get some food into her. Around nine maybe?” he suggested.

The grifter agreed easily and the pair were about to end their call when she said his name and got his attention back.

“You’re doing a wonderful thing here, y’know? I think it’ll be good for the both of you in the long run,” she admitted.

“Thanks,” Eliot muttered his response and then hung up fast.

He honestly wasn’t sure what Sophie meant by her words and he didn’t feel like examining it would do any good right now. He concentrated on the matter at hand, the need to get himself ready for what was bound to be a hard days work and then get Parker in the same state. He hated the thought of having to wake her and so was genuinely relieved when he walked back into the living room and found her stirring.

“Hey there, sleepyhead,” he greeted her with a lop-sided smile. “You okay?” he checked when she looked up at him over the back of the couch with a somewhat panicked expression.

After a moment she nodded.

“Forgot I was here,” she admitted, coughing some as she spoke.

It was still coming as a shock to her vocal chords when she spoke much, still such an effort to make any kind of movement, even wriggling around on the soft comfy couch so she could see Eliot properly. Still, she had to try, she had to get back to normal as fast as possible, because being here with Eliot all the time, being a burden to him, that Parker couldn’t bear. After spending all that time in her high school world, having him be her boyfriend, considering herself in love, anything less was painful now. Parker wasn’t sure she was equipped to deal with that kind of pain.

“Okay,” said Eliot suddenly, looking as if he’d been as lost in thought as she had for a moment. “I should fix us some breakfast before Sophie gets here, she’s, er... she’s gonna help you out with getting cleaned up,” he said making some vague gesture with his hand.

Parker nodded that she understood. It didn’t thrill her to know she needed help with such simple things, but for now she did. Even naive little Parker could see why Eliot might be uncomfortable bathing her at this point!

From the light at the window, she could tell she had been asleep a long time, and yet Parker wasn’t sure she had dreamt at all. It was ridiculous how tired she could be after so long apparently asleep in this world. She wondered if maybe her brain was just exhausted from conjuring up an alternate reality that seemed so very real. She had lived through two months of high school, complete with a whole cast of characters based on real life people that she knew. That had to be a strain for anyone to uphold all that time, she figured.

“Parker?” said Eliot then, clicking his fingers in front of her face.

The thief refocused her eyes and found a smile for the man leaning over her still, even though his own expression was less happy.

“I’m okay,” she said hoarsely.

“Well, you’ll be better than okay when we get some breakfast inside o’ you,” he told her, still looking at her in a way that Parker could only describe as weird.

This had to be strange for him Eliot too, she realised. Having her here all useless and needy. She was so unlike herself, and Parker hated that, but if Eliot could help her get better she wasn’t going to argue the point.

As he started helping her up, he told her about the food he would make for her. He started outlining a plan of healthy meals and assisted exercise, and when she got stronger she wouldn’t need the wheelchair so much. They’d work on her arms first, so she had a safety net for when she started trying to walk more. Eliot seemed convinced that it wouldn’t take so very many weeks of help to get back to how she used to be.

“That sound good, darlin’?” he asked her when she was sat in the kitchen, watching him begin to prepare the delicious breakfast he had described.

“Yeah, good,” she agreed, smiling as he set a glass of water with a straw in front of her, though somehow the expression didn’t entirely reach her eyes.

* * *

“I know this is hard on you, Parker,” Sophie sympathised, watching every uncomfortable, awkward expression cross the young woman’s face as she helped her bathe, “but it’s not forever. You’ll be back to your old self before you know it if you work hard, and I know you’ll do that.” She smiled kindly. “It’s not in yours or Eliot’s nature to give in or slack at all. I have complete confidence in the two of you.”

Parker nodded slightly that she agreed, but winced on the inside at the words used. The two of you. As if she and Eliot were a pair, a couple, an ‘us’. They had been in her head, and she liked that a lot. Here, in what passed for reality, she would like it to be the same, and would have made sure Eliot knew it had she been able. As things stood, she couldn’t even stand on her own two feet, and there was no way she could put into action any plans she might have had to become Eliot’s girlfriend or similar. All Parker could do was be his good student, as she had been before when he taught her to fight and to cook a little. She must learn to be herself again, in the physical sense, and then worry about everything else after.

“Y’know, when you were in that hospital and... and you couldn’t wake,” said Sophie, never looking directly at her friend, “we were all so very worried we were losing you, but none so much as Eliot,” she admitted.

“He blamed himself,” said Parker, knowing it was true. “I... I told him not to,” she explained, clearing her throat half way through.

“That’s good.” Sophie smiled then, but her heart wasn’t in the expression.

Parker didn’t notice. She wasn’t equipped to see these things or know what they meant. The fact was, if Parker had woken able-bodied and as she had been before, Sophie had hoped she and Eliot would make a pair. On the surface, they might seem like an odd couple, perhaps Beauty and the Beast in an odd sense, but the grifter knew better.

For all that Eliot seemed to be so harsh and violent, he had a good heart buried deep inside, and of all people, Parker had touched it. He cared for her deeply, a blind man could not fail to see it, especially since her unfortunate accident.

As for the thief herself, any other woman might have made her feelings known by now, but Parker was not any other woman. She wouldn’t know how to handle deep emotions if she felt them for any man, and when it came to Eliot, she was so unsure how to take him. She trusted him, which was a huge deal for her, and she seemed to like to be close to him. This was enough to make Sophie see what others might now, that one day, somehow, they would be together. Of course, it was all on hold until Parker was able to be herself again, and that was the biggest shame of all.

* * *

Eliot overheard his name said beyond the bathroom door and couldn’t help but stop walking when he did. He shouldn’t listen in, he knew that, but by the same token, if the conversation was about himself, he had every right to know what was being said. He only heard Parker tell Sophie exactly what she had told him last night, that he should not blame himself for her accident.

There was so much more to it than that which she could never understand. It would have been hard enough for him and Parker to have any kind of relationship if she were able-bodied and ready for such a thing. Emotionally she was stunted to say the least, and that wasn’t her fault or his, but it would make for complications, Eliot knew. The team could be an issue too. Mixing business with pleasure rarely ended well, and although Hardison hadn’t exactly lost his mind at the prospect of letting go of his Parker-sized crush to his bro, Eliot couldn’t imagine he would ever handle such a thing easily. He would be a truly strange and unfeeling person if he accepted it with no fight or fuss at all.

Eliot shook his head and walked away. This was all stupid thinking, and he knew it. The likelihood of Parker wanting to be with him that way or any way was crazy, much crazier than he ever accused her of being in the past. Besides, even if such a possibility did exist, there was a much bigger hurdle to overcome first.

Job One had been getting Parker awake, which strangely it seemed Eliot had been the one to do. It hadn’t been planned and he never did explain properly to the team how it happened. One of the doctors knew the truth of the kiss that brought Parker back to the land of living, but he never did say so to Nate or Sophie or Hardison. They thought their thief just heard his voice and reacted, that she was bound to just come around eventually. Maybe she was. Maybe she would’ve done so anyway, there was no real way to know, and Parker was the last person Eliot would discuss it with.

Now came job number two, and that was getting Parker back the way she used to be. Her muscles were well-developed and well-trained since she was a child. It probably wouldn’t take too much for her to bounce back, to get her arms strong enough to support her as they got her walking and all. Eliot hadn’t lied when he said she could be back to normal inside a month or two. He believed it, and he certainly hoped for it.

Once she was as she should be, Parker could make her own choices and decisions, and that meant Eliot’s own selfish feelings could come out if he chose to let them. She would be in a position to argue, to run from him if she chose to, and honestly, Eliot wouldn’t blame her. A part of him still believed he should forever hold his peace on how he truly felt about Parker, to save his heart from breaking perhaps, or maybe just to save hers the pain of having to reject him.

It was frustrating, so completely overwhelming to Eliot, to realise just how much he could love Parker. He would keep his distance, even when they were in such close confines, and they would be yet. Lifting her in and out of chairs, holding her steady when she had to try to walk and move and all. Cooking for her, putting her to bed at night, it would all be torturous in its way, and yet he would do it. He would do and be whatever Parker needed until she was okay again, because it was all he could want for her.

None of that took away from how frustrating it all was, and that frustration came out now, full-force into Eliot’s punching bag. Two work-outs in the space of a morning might be over-kill, but it was that or leave holes in the walls later when his inner-calm went missing completely over Parker, and all his unruly feelings for her.


	18. Chapter 18

As the days rolled by, turning into weeks, Eliot and Parker fell into a routine that helped them both cope with what they were feeling. Parker focused all her energy into the exercises Eliot gave her, fighting against her wasted muscles, building them up day by day until she had almost full use of her arms, and some use of her legs again. She wasn’t back to normal, but she was a lot closer these days. She could at least use the bathroom unaided and shift herself from the wheelchair to the sofa and back without incident.

For Eliot, it was both a relief and a curse. Having Parker dependant on him was strangely comforting, and the closeness they’d been forced into was different but nicer than he had expected. At the same time, it had been torturous to be so close and know he couldn’t push his luck further. Besides, he would never wish Parker not to be better. It was what she wanted and needed so badly, and he wanted it for her. One thing was for sure, she proved she was as stubborn as anybody he ever met, and tougher than she looked too.

There were no punches pulled in this, there couldn’t afford to be. If Parker was going to get better, Eliot had to be strict and stick to the things he told her were important. They were in his own personal gym several hours a day at this point, keeping her arms strong and working on her legs that grew more co-ordinated and able to take her weight easier every day.

At meal times, she ate healthy as he did. Fruits and vegetables, fresh meats and pastas, all home-cooked meals. The garbage she called breakfast cereal was out, and fortune cookies were reserved for when they actually ate Chinese food. Even then, Eliot had avoided letting her eat take out if he possibly could.

For her part, Parker didn’t argue. She was fully aware of how much Eliot was trying to help her, so she went along with everything he told her would be good for her body. She wanted the control back, she wanted to be able to do all the things she loved. Already she could talk like a person again and manoeuvre around for the most part, letting her arms take much of the strain whilst her legs caught up. The parallel bars in the gym became her walking aid and she spent hours forcing her lower limbs to comply to her commands. She was always exhausted by the end of the day, but it was working, she was winning. Besides, it was worth every drop of sweat, every blister on her hands, when Eliot smiled that rare smile of his and told her how well she was doing.

The team did not take on any jobs in the beginning. Whether it was out of respect for Parker who was missing or because they needed Eliot who was always absent from meetings, the hitter and thief were not sure. In the past few days, Nate had suggested they might help out one particular client who was desperate. The way he said it suggested it was a necessity rather than a request - it had to lead back to Moreau.

Nate assured Parker that they could work around her, whilst Sophie added in how tough it would be to cope, but they would try. Eliot had to smile at that. The grifter was bending over backwards to make Parker feel wanted and special, terrified the poor thief that had been abandoned so many times before would feel as if it were happening again. The hitter himself was needed for one small part of the job, which he didn’t mind at all, except nobody else was going to be available to come over to his place and sit with Parker until he got back.

“It’s just for a couple of hours,” Nate pointed out. “Besides, you said yourself, Parker is getting better all the time, and if there’s an emergency, well, we’ll figure something out...”

“No,” the hitter growled in response, failing to keep his voice down as much as he should when the thief was just in the next room. “I’m not leaving her alone, Nate. Don’t ask me again.”

“How about asking me?” Parker suggested as she appeared in the doorway then, hanging onto the wall with all the strength her fingers held.

Hardison was there a second later, an apologetic look on his face since he was clearly supposed to keep her busy. Eliot didn’t really like that either.

“Darlin’, you can’t just...” he began, only to have her interrupt him, one of the few people ever allowed to do such a thing and live.

“Yes, I can,” she insisted, moving swiftly to the chair and sitting down with a bump. “I can sit and watch a movie by myself while you cook dinner, take a shower, and work out,” she reminded him. “I can do it just the same while you go kick some bad guy’s butt.” She shrugged easily.

“Woman’s got a point, brah,” agreed Hardison, not so sure he should have when he felt the full effect of the hitter’s death glare upon him.

“We can’t do this without you, Eliot,” the Mastermind at his side repeated. “If Parker’s comfortable with being alone, just for a little while, then surely it’d be fine.”

Eliot did hate to be told he was wrong like this. By the same token, he was the one that had gotten so mad when people treated Parker like she didn’t have a mind of her own. This ought to be her decision, he needed to let go in some small way and not become completely dependant, because that wasn’t fair. Somehow it didn’t seem to come easy after a month or so of being everything she needed.

“You sure, Parker?” he checked, meeting her eyes, sure he would know if she was lying just to save face, just to not be a bother.

“I’m sure, I promise.” She nodded solemnly, and that seemed to be good enough for the hitter.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he told Nate, arms still folded across his chest. “But it’s on your head if this goes wrong,” he said to the Mastermind with a menacing look.

Nate let it all slide off him as if he were Teflon-coated. He never worried, it always worked out in the end. He had too much confidence in his team to believe that anything would go so wrong it couldn’t be mended. Some might say he should have learnt a lesson after Parker’s accident, but to be fair, she had survived. Besides, she wasn’t actually hurt in the line of duty. He hadn’t made the call that got her injured.

“Okay.” He nodded then, putting his earbud back in as he crossed the kitchen. “Sophie, Plan A is a go,” he told her, waiting for her to finish fake laughing at the mark’s joke before saying anymore.

Hardison watched Nate pass by him in the doorway and then looked to Parker and Eliot still staring at each other. They seemed to be in some sort of silent conversation that nobody else was meant to understand. Times like this, the hacker actually wondered if they had learnt to read each other’s minds in their time living in close quarters. Maybe this was just proof of what he ought to have always known, the truth that had crept up on him unawares over the past couple of years working with this team. As much as he cared about Parker, loved her even, Hardison knew he wasn’t the man for her. She needed someone with both inner and outer strength to keep her grounded sometimes, and confident enough to let her fly when she needed to be allowed to. Eliot could handle anything, including Parker’s crazy times, and her emotional traumas. As much as Hardison wished he was that guy, that he was tough enough to cope, in reality he was man enough to admit that he couldn’t.

Eliot would take on the task and be just fine. It certainly seemed as if Parker was willing to let him try.

“So, I gotta scoot,” he said then, catching their joint attention. “I catch you guys later,” he said with a snap and clap kind of gesture as he turned to go.

Eliot growled when he realised his friend was once again whistling the theme to The Odd Couple. Parker just laughed. She couldn’t have known what the tune was if the others hadn’t’ve told her, and since finding out she always made herself giggle when she heard it, afraid of what reaction she might really have otherwise.

She and Eliot were not a couple, odd or otherwise, though for a while now Parker had obviously wished they were. She did her best not to think about it, but for the young woman who usually spoke out first and didn’t care later, it was weird for Parker to keep her silence. It had helped to have to concentrate on getting better and she was certainly doing that, much faster than even she thought she might. The problem with getting better, getting her independence back was it reset the balance between herself and Eliot. She would have to go home soon and deal by herself. Within a few short weeks, she would be to a point where they functioned almost entirely as they used to, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“You sure you’re okay with this, Parker?” asked Eliot when he spotted her serious and thoughtful expression. “I’m serious here, don’t just say what you think Nate wants to hear,” he told her, crouching down to her height in the chair, mindful of literally talking down to her.

“I’m fine, I swear,” she promised. “Cross my heart.” She smiled, literally doing so, glad to see Eliot roll his eyes at her behaviour.

She didn’t like it when he got all serious on her like that, when he looked her in the eye and asked her about her feelings. It gave her flashbacks to the High School world she had lived in so long. It made her remember how good it had felt to be that kind of close with him, and Parker couldn’t stand it. Actually being alone for a while would probably be good for her, help her get used to being independent again, without Eliot to rely on or even just to talk to all the time. Everything was all about adjusting to things recently, and Parker was getting so tired of that.

* * *

It was getting dark out and Parker had never been so glad of her earbud as she was right now. There was no way Nate would have agreed to her having it in, hearing everything that went on during the con she was not to be a part of, but that was okay, because he had no clue she even knew where it had been hidden.

The truth of it was, she needed to know, because without the facts, Parker’s imagination just ran wild. She worried about Eliot most especially. Not that she had any doubts about his ability to take on any bad guys that came his way, but nobody was completely invincible. If her car accident had taught Parker anything it was that nobody was invulnerable. Even mundane tasks like driving home after a job could prove so very dangerous.

Parker found it almost impossible to keep quiet as the team went about their work without her. Nate and Hardison were screwing up their break-in, she could tell, but she let them be because she had to. They always got out of a jam in the end, she had faith in them enough to do that. What really hurt was hearing Eliot grunt with pain too many times as he battled the mark’s lackeys. He would come home tonight, all in one piece, but battered and bruised, Parker was certain of that. He was already later than he had planned, which meant he was also mad about the whole situation. That was why it came as no surprise to Parker when he arrived home, slamming the front door loudly behind himself.

Parker shoved her earbud into her pocket and re-focused on the TV. She had no idea what she was going to see and made a face when she realised it wasn’t the cartoons she had started out on hours before. That same annoyed expression was still on her face when Eliot opened the door and leaned in, so all she saw was his head.

“Hey, you okay?” he checked.

Parker looked over at him and continued to frown. The fact he was hiding the rest of himself behind the door made her worry. The cut over his eye that was dripping blood still, didn’t help either.

“You’re bleeding,” she pointed out, flipping off the TV without ever taking her eyes off Eliot. “What else is wrong?” she asked, not even bothering to answer his question about her own health.

“It’s nothin’.” He shrugged off her concern, or at least she assumed he shrugged, she couldn’t actually see for sure.

“Eliot, if you don’t come into the room, I’m going to try to follow you upstairs,” she told him straight. “I’ll probably fall back down and break my neck or something, but-”

“Okay, alright!” he stopped her, knowing Parker was just stubborn and crazy enough to do what she said and damn the consequences.

The hitter stumbled a little as he came into the room, trying not to show that his leg or back were hurting, Parker suspected. She knew about hiding pain, she had done it enough times herself before. Because of their work and the injuries they were always bound to sustain, she and Eliot were as good at spotting each others problems long before anyone else.

“See, I’m fine,” he repeated, even as Parker looked him up and down and catalogued a half dozen sources of pain.

“Maybe the cut on your face is nothing to worry about,” she agreed, “but you’re not walking right. You’re not even breathing like you should be, anybody could tell!” She sighed heavily. “Why did you lie?”

Eliot closed his eyes and let out a breath. He knew he shouldn’t’ve lied to her, he shouldn’t even have lied to the team. It was just what he did, because he felt he had to. Eliot wasn’t built for dealing with fuss and smothering. He liked to be alone and deal with things his own way, so as much as he could he played it as if his injuries were nothing, even when it near-killed him to carry on. The fact of the matter was the others really didn’t notice if he played the part well enough. He ought to have known Parker was different.

“I’m sorry, darlin’,” he apologised, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t lie on purpose, I just... I don’t want you worryin’ about me, okay?” he told her, sinking down to sit on the couch beside her. “You got enough to worry about, and if it wasn’t obvious, I can take care of myself,” he reminded her.

To prove a point, she quickly extended her finger and poked him gently in the ribs. He hissed with the terrible pain, doubling over a little for good measure. Parker took the opportunity to go for another attack. A handful of jacket and shirt together came up and showed knife marks across his lower back.

“Somebody has to help you,” she told him matter of factly.

Eliot could’ve tried to argue with her, but she was already levering herself off the couch back into her chair. He couldn’t help but smile as she manourvered expertly around the furniture to the downstairs bathroom. She was pretty adept in that wheelchair, and yet she hopefully wouldn’t need it that much longer. She was getting stronger every day and the only reason she still had the thing was for when she was tired or Eliot wasn’t close by. To save her a trip back, he got off his ass and followed her.

In the bathroom, Parker already had the first aid box open on her knees, antiseptic and bandages at the ready.

“Take your clothes off,” she told him straight, not a thing about it sexual or weird, and yet Eliot couldn’t help but smirk at her attitude.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, removing his jacket and shirts.

He didn’t see Parker wince at the full on view of his injuries, and that was probably a good thing. She wondered how much of his kidding the team that he wasn’t so very badly hurt was also a way for him to fool himself. Thinking about it too much bothered her, so Parker switched off the annoying voice in her head that would eventually make her cry. Instead she concentrated on the task at hand, cleaning out cuts and binding ribs. It would have been easier if he didn’t have to kneel in front of her chair, they both knew that. Not least because the tear at the knee of his jeans showed an awful bloody graze.

“Not working,” she muttered, gesturing with both hands for him to get up and move away.

Her feet came down off the foot rests onto the tiled floor and Eliot’s mouth immediately opened to tell her to be careful. He never got the chance.

“I know what I’m doing,” she snapped as she got up, meeting his eyes as she did so. “Nobody knows my body like I do, Eliot,” she assured him.

Most of her weight was leant back on the unit that held the sink as she got the hitter to turn around and helped him some more with the wounds he wouldn’t be able to reach himself. When those were done and he had turned to face her, she started to dab antiseptic on the cut above his eye.

It was strange to be this close. Oddly intimate, with him lacking a shirt and her so wobbly on her feet to begin with. Parker wasn’t sure if it was still Eliot’s breathing that was out of whack or if hers had joined in too. It was so strange, her fingers seemed to tingle every time she made contact with his skin, and her legs were starting to shake. She thought he had some control over how she reacted to Eliot these days, but today was different somehow. Maybe it was because she was getting so much better, maybe it was just that they had got to know each other now on a whole other level since she started living here. Maybe her legs really were going to buckle, Parker realised too late, as she turned to put the used cotton in the trash and stumbled.

Eliot’s strong arms caught her from behind, pulling her upright, and then lifting her completely up off the floor.

It had to hurt, a lot, she was sure of that. It was the only reason she was glad when he put her back in the chair. What really didn’t make sense was why they both looked equally as shaken by the moment as each other.

“It’s late,” he said softly, almost too softly to be his voice. “Er, thanks for helping me out, but we... you should get to bed. Gotta get you back on that walking frame in the morning,” he forced an awkward smile.

Parker only nodded and turned her chair away. She was out the door as fast as she could go, and the moment had passed.


	19. Chapter 19

Eliot was surprised when he came back to the living room from the shower and found Parker packing all her high school dvds into the box he brought them there in. They had a good session today, proving that her legs were almost back to a state where she could walk unaided the majority of the time. Just a couple of weeks ago she was stumbling over herself after trying to stand just a few minutes to help him clean up his wounds. She was so much more capable now, before his cuts and minor fractures had even quite finished healing. Her swift progress was supposed to be a good thing, and yet Eliot knew Parker would be moving out just as soon as she was able. It was shocking to realise how much he would miss her, how much he had become accustomed to her being there all the time. For two such independent people, they had got along really well living together. Though she had been dependant on him when she came here, it was odd how he had come to depend on her too, and in ways he never expected.

“It’s a little soon for packing, darlin’,” he told her from the door, pushing a chunk of his still damp and wavy hair back into a band.

“I don’t want these anymore,” replied Parker, never looking up from her task.

She had really hoped to get the dvds all boxed up and hidden away before Eliot got back from the bathroom. It would have saved a lot of explanation that she really didn’t want to have to give. The truth was, it was just too painful to sit through any more of these movies now. The past week or more, she had made excuses not to rewatch them when Eliot was around, even citing his own dislike as a reason. When he went out for a couple of hours, be it to the store or to help out the team, she said she was kicking back with a favourite movie, but she didn’t actually do it. He was going to ask her what had changed, what had happened to make her dislike the movies she had loved before so much. There was no way for Parker to explain without making herself sound crazier than anyone ever considered she could be. Without telling Eliot how she might feel about him.

Things had been bad when she first came back, realising her body was wrecked and her feelings for Eliot would probably be unwelcome. Living here, she thought it would be torturous, but for the most part it had been fine. They concentrated so much on her health and fitness, Parker found there was little room or energy left to worry about anything else, silly things like whether or not she was in love with her good friend the hitter.

It was around two weeks ago now when things had shifted, at least they had for Parker. She dare not ask Eliot what he was feeling and she certainly couldn’t tell from the way he behaved. He didn’t seem all that much different, truth be told, but she was. Parker had been deliberately vague when she brought up the topic with Sophie. The grifter was kind and sweet, understanding like a mother might be, when Parker asked about feelings and emotions. She never had so many different and conflicting feelings rushing around inside as she did with Eliot. Parker loved and hated them all at the same time, especially when she tallied up all the points and realised she really must be in love.

The high school movies had helped her realise the truth. The way the girls talked about the boys they liked, some of it was useful. How they squealed and went weak at the knees when a guy so much as looked at them, well, that was just silly, but the more serious stuff helped. The brush of a hand feeling like electricity on the skin. A smile that could make a heart pound. This urge to touch and be close all the time. A warm feeling inside when anything nice or kind was said. It wasn’t just a physical attraction, Parker had always known she felt that about Eliot from Day One, on account of the fact he was hot and she wasn’t blind! This love thing, it was new, and different, and ultimately scary, mostly because she had no idea what she was supposed to do about it.

The high school movies couldn’t tell her that, and so they had ceased to be useful. They must go, since their only function now seemed to be in making Parker cry. They reminded her of her dream world, in all the worst ways. Of how easy it had been to be close to Eliot there, and how difficult it seemed now. She hated them for taunting her, hated the girls who got their guys, who were Homecoming or Prom Queen, who smiled down the camera like they were so damn clever.

Parker slammed the last few dvds into the box with evident frustration, and tears welling in her eyes that Eliot was surprised to see. It didn’t make sense, how she could be so mad a bunch of inanimate objects, especially when they seemed to mean so much to her before?

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he asked, moving to sit beside her on the couch.

It was similar enough to ‘there’s something wrong with you’ to make her laugh, though it was a strangely hollow sound to their ears. Life was so much simpler when Eliot thought she was crazy, when she poked him in the ribs and ran away for fun, when he growled at her for taking food from the plates when he was preparing dinner. She could almost fool herself he was like a brother then, a very hot brother she had inappropriate for a sister thoughts about, but still, it was okay somehow. Now it was all so much more complicated and it was all her own fault.

“Parker, c’mon,” Eliot urged her, putting a finger under her chin to make her look at him as tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. “After all we’ve gone through here, whatever’s wrong, you can tell me,” he said seriously. “You trust me, right?”

She nodded solemnly that she did, never knowing how much that meant to him. It took so much for her to trust anyone, even a little bit, and yet she always seemed to trust him. Here they were, almost three years down the line from first meeting, having gone through so much together. If she was upset, if he could help her, then he damn well needed to do it.

“Okay,” she sniffed hard, wiping the tears off her cheeks with both hands and shaking herself out of a silly bout of crying. “Okay, I... I’ll tell you about it, but you have to promise you won’t tell the others.”

“Cross my heart,” he swore, mimicking the action she used herself when she made such promises, glad to see the merest hint of her smile on her lips as he did so.

“When I crashed my car,” she began seriously then, not even looking at him. “I know I seemed like I was unconscious to you, but for me, I woke up. I was in a bedroom that was mine, but I was a teenager. I had a dad and Frankie, my brother, he was there,” she said with a crack in her voice and a smile that seemed to contradict each other in a way Eliot didn’t understand. “I went to high school,” she told him then, eyes open and gazing into his own. “For almost two months, I went to high school.”

Eliot wasn’t sure what to say to that. It did sound kind of wacky, and yet at the same time it did make sense. He had some pretty vivid coma dreams in his time, and Parker’s sole topic of conversation the few days before the crash had been high school. She had OD’ed on the damn movies over the weekend, it was what caused her to be so tired and crash her car in the first place.

“And now you think I’m even crazier than before.” Parker sighed, feeling dumb.

She moved to get up off the couch, but Eliot’s hand catching her wrist stopped her dead.

“Parker,” he pulled her carefully back down beside him and she turned to look his way. “You’re not crazy, not the way you think,” he promised her. “I know what it’s like, those dreams you can have...”

“But it wasn’t like a dream for me,” she interrupted before he had a chance to say more. “Eliot it was so real!” she insisted. “I knew all the people. I had friends and a family and I loved going to school. McRorys was a hangout for teenagers, and I was good at math, and... and I went to Homecoming,” she tried to smile, but tears streaked down her cheeks at the same time.

It was awful. She felt so very stupid saying all of this, talking about that other world as if it were as real as it had felt to her. Eliot said she wasn’t crazy but he had to think so. She thought so right now, it was the main reason she was leaving out the important part where her friends were the team and her date to the dance was him.

“Wow.” The hitter smiled then, reaching out to wipe the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “That’s some coma dream you had there, sweetheart. I’m surprised you even wanted to wake up. Which is not to say I’m not very glad you did, ‘cause we’d’ve missed you if you hadn’t.”

“I didn’t miss you,” she admitted, as his hand fell away from her face.

It came out wrong and she knew it. She should have followed up with the explanation faster, but swallowing down the lump in her throat made it so much harder.

“I mean, I probably would’ve missed you, except you were there,” she said quickly. “The whole team. We actually ran a con in the school, got Damien Moreau taken away during the Homecoming Dance. It was pretty cool.”

Eliot flinched at the sound of Moreau’s name, and Parker almost asked if there was more to it than just thinking about how close the deadline was getting, how much Parker’s coma and injuries had slowed them down in their pursuit of the bad guy. Now didn’t seem like the right time somehow.

“I’ll bet you and Hardison had a great time at the dance,” said Eliot then looking elsewhere.

He had his reasons for trying to change the subject off Moreau. He also felt the need to bring up the hacker before Parker did. In her dream world, she would have a dream date. It was always her and Hardison who ended up making out on cons, who had danced together on the high school reunion job they pulled a few days before her crash. It was highly plausible that her sub-conscious would make him her date.

“Hardison didn’t take me to the dance. You did,” she blurted out then, making her own eyes go as wide as his did at the news.

Parker almost wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth for fear of what she might say next. She couldn’t believe she just told Eliot she was dating him in a dream she had for two months! If he hadn’t thought she was crazy before, she was damn sure he’d be calling for the men with the straight-jackets now.

“I guess it’s just because we were talking about high school that day,” she continued quickly. “Y’know, before I crashed the car. I guess that’s why we went together, and we got Homecoming King and Queen too, because we talked about it,” she was muttering now as she turned away.

Parker fidgeted around with the dvds in the box, as if checking they were all there, despite the fact she knew they were.

Eliot didn’t know what to say or even what to think. It wasn’t completely out there that Parker had a coma dream about high school or that it seemed so real. It even made sense to him that her sub-conscious put the team there into her special made up world as her friends. He doubted she had many others she could call true friends, and so she would want to share her experience with those closest to her now. It all made sense, except the last part.

When it came to dating, which as far as he knew Parker had never done, her comatose mind had chosen him. It gave him a ray of hope he never dared to let in before. Maybe he wasn’t just seeing things that weren’t there between them, maybe she did feel the same. Of course, this was Parker he was thinking about. She had to be the most complex woman he ever met in his life, and he was including some real complicated specimens in that list. She was the true definition of a woman, a mystery wrapped in an enigma, with twenty pounds of crazy thrown in there for good measure. He loved her, he’d been sure on that for a while now, but trying to judge what she really thought of him was always a challenge.

Parker would admit to trusting him, and Eliot knew what a big deal that was. Of course, they could still be firmly in friends only territory with just that to go on, but there had been moments, odd glances and touches. He never got his hopes up, not least because he knew he didn’t deserve her. Though they were all thieves, Parker was a kind of innocent Eliot hadn’t known in himself for more years than he cared to count. Still, if she cared enough about him, if she could want him like he wanted her, Eliot knew he’d go for it in a heart beat. Living in such close quarters as they had been, there was no way he could bear to keep his distance anymore if she was willing to admit what he thought she might be trying to tell him.

“Where’d the dream end?” he asked, and Parker stopped mumbling abruptly.

She looked sideways at him around her hair, almost suspiciously. He couldn’t know about how her dream ended, Parker was sure of that. Sophie seemed like a mind reader sometimes, but Eliot wasn’t that good. It was most likely just an innocent question, but her own answer would lead her right into the one thing she had been dying to know since she woke up and never quite dare ask.

“At the Homecoming Dance,” she admitted, bright green eyes locked onto baby blue. “We were dancing, and then...”

“And then, what?” he prompted when she stalled in her answer.

Eliot had an idea in his head now that was not going to go away, and he had to know if he was right, if her dream had given way to reality at the precise moment he was thinking of. They were ridiculously close, and the world seemed to have fallen away, leaving just the two of them. It was like it had been at the high school dance, Parker realised, and her heart hammered in her chest at the thought of it.

“And then you kissed me,” she admitted too softly, “and I let myself wake up.”

Eliot let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, realising he was right. When he kissed her, that moment had broken through Parker’s unconscious state. Reality had collided with her dream, and like the fairytale little Becca had spoken of in the hospital corridor, Eliot had played the prince and woken the princess as if by magic.

“Parker...” he began, not knowing what came next as he gazed into her eyes.

“I didn’t dream the kiss, did I? That was real?”

Parker was sure it had been, but then just started to wonder if her mind had played more tricks than even she could comprehend.

Eliot didn’t quite answer her, but leaned in closer, his hand at her hair. Parker’s eyes closed and she was hardly aware of it as she anticipated a moment that never came.

A loud knock on the door startled the pair enough to break the mood, and both looked towards the sound. Ignoring it was preferable, and yet it could easily be an emergency. Neither Eliot nor Parker were prepared to let a possible call for help go unanswered. He got up quickly and left the room, and though she thought about following it never quite happened. She trusted her legs more now than ever, and yet in this moment, she doubted they would hold. Voices in the hallway made her look up fast and suddenly there was Nate and Sophie and Hardison, all piling into the living room. Their latest job had been a success and they felt the need to celebrate. Apparently, it just didn’t feel right to do so without the hitter and thief, so they brought the party over here.

“It’s not a bad time, is it?” asked Sophie, the only one to notice anything might be wrong.

“Bad time? Why would it be a bad time?” Eliot scoffed as if it were the most ridiculous thing he ever heard.

Parker laughed along with him, not knowing what else to do. The moment was gone, and she wondered if they’d ever see it again.


	20. Chapter 20

Eliot and Parker were not comfortable, though they were doing their best to hide how awkward they were feeling. The team had come over to celebrate a job well done, a bunch of innocents out of danger, and another step closer to bringing down Damien Moreau. There was no point to argue, no way to not be happy about what Nate, Sophie, and Hardison were telling their team-mates about the win-win situation. Unfortunately, there was much more on their minds than tonight’s family dinner. Sophie could tell, even if the boys were oblivious. Parker thought she was being clever recently when she asked the grifter about relationships, but Sophie could see through the girl. Parker was the very best at hiding when it came to wearing black and breaking safes, never being caught. Her emotions were not so easy for her to keep under wraps, and she was entirely obvious in her behaviour, at least it seemed that way to her friend.

In an attempt not to show that her mind was constantly on Eliot, she kept her eyes off him, very deliberately. Even if they had to speak to each other, she never turned her head. She would look anywhere but at the guy and that just had to mean something. The hitter was playing this the other way around. He was making a point of trying to speak to the Parker, trying to coax her into meeting his gaze in any way possible. He talked highly of her progress in her exercise regime, asked her to pass the jug of water, brought up topics he knew interested her. Nothing worked, of course, but he did keep on trying.

Something had happened here, or perhaps it was about to happen when the rest of the team showed up. It made Sophie feel bad to think that just when this couple might have been getting somewhere, it was their friends who had ruined it all, however inadvertently. Too late now of course.

“So, things are clearly coming along well with you, Parker,” said Nate, catching her attention from across the table.

“It’s almost as if you good as new, mama,” Hardison agreed with a smile.

Parker smiled back, glad they were pleased about her progress. She was pleased about it too, really happy that she could act like a human person most of the time. Still, there were downsides to her independence, like leaving here.

“Yup,” she agreed, popping the p as she did sometimes. “I guess I can start helping on cons again soon,” she told them. “I mean, I can’t exactly run around so much yet, and I maybe wouldn’t trust myself in an air-vent, but the safe-cracking would be fine, that kind of thing,” she explained, pushing a forkful of dinner into her mouth then.

“Well, one step at a time,” Nate agreed, “but I’m sure Eliot would agree that you’ve made excellence progress.”

“Star pupil,” the hitter agreed, looking from the mastermind to the thief. “Never knew a person work so hard,” he said, entirely complimentary but none the less true.

The surprise of him saying such things actually made Parker look at him that time, though she didn’t really react anymore than that. No smile, no thanks. She stared at Eliot like she had never seen him before for a few moments, and then swiftly looked away again. The subject needed changing, she decided, and quickly asked Sophie and Hardison about their previous job, exactly how they had pulled the con, all the details.

The fact was, she wanted to think about anything but Eliot. It was too awkward and too weird to have a conversation about her getting better because it all led back to him. Next they would mention her accident which would bring her coma dream fantasy to mind, and then her eventually leaving here, at which point she knew she would want to scream and cry. It was all too much right now, and Parker would rather not deal. Instead, she would let the gang wax lyrical about their latest victory and wish the world away for a few hours. It was a childish and silly plan, but right now it was all the thief had.

For Eliot, it was equal parts a relief and a curse that the topic had shifted. The fact he got Parker to even look at him was a good thing, and it made him want to keep praising her, talking her up just so he had her undivided attention. At the same time, he was glad when she turned away because the look in her eyes when she met his own was unbearable. She wanted to bolt, he could see it, in fact he could practically feel the urge of it rolling off her in waves. That was his fault, pushing his luck when she told him about that stupid high school fantasy her subconscious had conjured.

Eliot was such an idiot. He had taken what she was sharing with him, this deep dark secret about a coma dream that she had hardly wanted to wake from, and tried to make it all real. He knew better than anyone what those kinds of dreams could be like. He was so damn naive to think Parker could ever have any real feelings for him that way.

“Uh, I have to take this,” said Nate when his cell phone interrupted the latest conversation.

Eliot took the break in proceedings as a good time to clear the table. Anything to get out of the room for a few minutes and clear his head. He looked sharply at Sophie when she got up too, offering to help. It wasn’t that the grifter never leant a hand, but it wasn’t a usual thing for her to do. He was prepared for a cross-examination of some kind when they reached the kitchen and he wasn’t wrong to assume it was coming apparently.

“So, how’re you, Eliot?” she asked him in such a way as to delve much further than his general health.

“Why don’t you ask the real question that’s in your head, Soph, and save us both some time?” he prompted as he shoved the empty containers onto the counter top and turned to face her.

Sophie glanced back to the dining room a moment before returning her focus to Eliot. She could fool a lot of people, but their hitter was smarter than that. It was how he duped many a mark, but he couldn’t do that to her, any more than she could out-smart him these days.

“Have you told Parker how you feel about her yet?” she asked plainly then, stepping up closer to him, mindful of being overheard.

“You told Nate how you feel about him?” he countered with a hint of a smirk. “’Cause, darlin’, you been harbouring those feelings a lot longer than I’ve even known Parker,” he pointed out.

“It’s not the same and you know it,” said Sophie haughtily. “Nate and I... it’s complicated,” she explained, not thrilled to realise a hint of laughter had escaped Eliot’s lips at her words.

“And you think me and Parker is, what? A stroll in the park?” he asked her as she came to lean beside him on the counter. “Soph, I can’t just... She’s too fragile,” he explained badly. “Even without the accident and all she’s been through, she’s not ready for a relationship.”

“She’s not, or you’re not?” Sophie challenged him with both words and looks, unafraid when his eyes flashed angrily at her. “I think you’re afraid.”

She was walking a thin line, they both knew it, but she wasn’t scared. Eliot would never hurt her, and not just because she was a woman. She was a part of his team, his family now, and Eliot had much more control than he sometimes let on. In any case, they both knew he was only so mad about this because she was right.

Eliot could give every excuse under the sun. That Parker wasn’t used to relationships. That with all he’d done, he didn’t deserve to be happy. Still, Sophie was right. Chief amongst his reasons for keeping silent about his feelings for Parker were because he feared the damage it would do, not just to her, but to his own heart. Even when things seemed right, when she seemed to be giving him all the signs that she felt the same, he just wasn’t ready to make the leap and risk everything.

In the next room, the girl in question was trying to make conversation with Hardison and failing badly. It wasn’t all Parker’s fault, the hacker wasn’t exactly his usual bubbly self. He had something to say that was just as difficult, and he honestly wasn’t sure where to begin.

“So, er, you and Eliot. You pretty tight these days,” the hacker said without ever looking at her.

Parker watched him, stacking up coasters as if he were going to shuffle a deck. Anyone else might have noticed he seemed nervous and awkward. They might have assumed the statement that sounded a lot like a question was loaded. Parker wasn’t most people.

“He’s helped me a lot.” She shrugged easily, knowing that much was true, even if all her other thoughts and feelings about Eliot were so confused.

“Yeah, I know he has,” Hardison agreed, looking towards the door through which his buddy had just passed a few moments before. “He was the man for the job,” he said, nodding to himself.

The truth of the matter was, as much as Hardison knew he loved Parker and always would, he couldn’t be with her. He would treat her right, and try his best to be all she needed, but he’d never truly succeed. In amongst this drama with her accident and all, Eliot had been exactly the guy for the job to literally get Parker back on her feet. He drove her hard but at the same time took care of her just like she needed. Hardison would have smothered her, and he knew it. He would always be looking for her to be a little less herself to suit him, because when she was full on crazy he just couldn’t quite deal. If she broke, he wasn’t the guy to fix her. When things were bad she needed a rock, and when they were good, she needed someone who didn’t mind her diving off the highest point into his arms. Hardison couldn’t be that guy. It killed him to realise it, but it didn’t make it any the less true. Though nobody would notice, he would step aside and let whatever might happen with Eliot and Parker just happen now, wit  
hout comment or argument. It was the only way.

“Ya know, girl,” he sighed, turning back to look at the blonde. “All I want, all any of us ever want, is for you to be happy, okay?”

“Sure.” She returned the weak smile he gave her, reaching an awkward hand out to pat his own on the table. “I want you to be happy too, Hardison. You’re like my best friend,” she assured him genuinely.

It was both the most beautiful thing she ever said to him and a knife in his heart at the same time.

“That’s cool, mama,” he promised her, topping her hand with his other one. “We BFF, always.”

Nate walked back in at that moment, calling for Sophie and Eliot to come through from the kitchen too. It seemed they had a potential new job coming up, so Hardison was needed for client research, and Sophie was advised to get some rest and prepare for a meeting tomorrow - the last thing any of them needed was a late night.

As if on cue, Parker yawned, and Eliot pointed out they ought to be getting to bed too. She went immediately, hardly looking at the hitter. It was just easier not to right now.

* * *

Parker lay on her back staring at the ceiling she almost couldn’t see at all in the dark. There was no way she could sleep right now, not when her head was so busy. She kept on thinking about her high school world, about how Eliot was in it. Parker couldn’t help but compare her subconsciously-created teen Eliot with the guy who was here, just down the hall in the next room. Earlier, when she told him the truth of her coma dream, he hadn’t laughed like she’d feared, or planned to have her taken away and locked up in a place for insane people. Instead he had seemed genuinely interested, and almost flattered that she had spent so much time with him in that other place. Then she mentioned Homecoming and the kiss she knew they had shared in this world as well as that one. Parker might be a little naive when it came to guys and romance and all, but she was pretty sure the look in his eyes had meant he was seriously considering kissing her again.

There was a part of Parker that felt like getting up, going into Eliot’s room, and just kissing him. She knew that wasn’t what people usually did. It wasn’t normal behaviour and she was supposed to try for normal whilst she was here. She figured Eliot would appreciate it if she tried more, since he got so mad sometimes when she was what he considered ‘crazy’. Besides, just because he had looked like he might kiss her in that moment, it didn’t prove that Eliot would want Parker to go throwing herself at him in the middle of the might, even she realised that.

Whilst the little thief pushed herself down further into the bed to try and sleep, Bunny pulled protectively close to her, Eliot laid awake still. He was also finding the ceiling stupidly interesting, as he thought only of Parker. Sure, he could live on ninety minutes sleep a night, but he didn’t like to do so if he could help it. The clock already said past midnight and his mind showed no signs of calming down enough for him to get any rest.

He couldn’t help it, Eliot just kept thinking about the fact that Parker was right there down the hall. It was crazy, crazier than she could ever be. They’d slept in the same house for weeks now, and he never really let himself think about it too much. There were a couple of nights when he was forced to. Once, when Parker had a very noisy nightmare and he had come running to check on her. The second time was when she overslept and didn’t even hear him knocking - he bust in and found her sleeping like an angel, peaceful and beautiful, and barely dressed.

Eliot scrubbed his hands over his face as if such a move would take the images from his mind. He couldn’t think about her that way, she was Parker for crying out loud! She trusted him, so much so that she literally put herself in his hands these past couple of months as he helped her recuperate. So much that he was her high school boyfriend in a fantasy world she loved so much she didn’t want to leave. So much he was the only one she was willing to share her coma dream experience with.

If he’d been smart, Eliot Spencer might have realised that if Parker cared for him so much, he was a fool to keep his distance. Unfortunately, his default setting these days was to believe he couldn’t deserve anything he wanted to come his way. Parker wouldn’t want a guy like him, not that way. She needed a friend and that was all he could ever be to her, he knew.

Eliot pushed himself further down in the bed to try and sleep, eyes tight shut against the world, and forcing himself to be calm enough to get some real rest. It wasn’t going to happen, he already knew that, but as with so many things in life, there as nothing left to do but try.


	21. Chapter 21

Eliot couldn’t sleep. He had spent several hours tossing and turning, determined to get some rest. Besides, getting up and doing anything else would probably disturb Parker and he really didn’t want to do that. His mind had been buzzing ever since she told him about her high school based coma dream, mostly because of his part in it. He was being ridiculous, Eliot was all aware of that. Just because Parker had some fantasy in her head where he was her high school boyfriend, it didn’t mean she had feelings for him. At the same time, she hadn’t exactly tried to get away when he thought about kissing her. Surely even Parker wasn’t so naïve she didn’t see what would have happened if the team hadn’t shown up when they did.

It actually made Eliot feel like he really was back in high school right now. As a teen it was impossible to navigate dating and girls feelings and all. He was good with women now, but back then things weren’t so simple. No high school boy was that smooth and confident, at least not in the beginning. Getting closer to Parker was like learning the ropes all over again, because she wasn’t like any other woman Eliot ever knew. Of all things he could face up to, screwing up with her was something he was genuinely scared about. That bothered Eliot more than anything else.

“You’re crazier than she is, man,” he muttered to himself as he got out of bed at last.

He had to be doing something, anything, and if he was quiet he could manage not to wake her. Stealth was practically his middle name, it had to be in his line of work. Pulling on his sweats, Eliot decided to head down to his gym and work out for a while. The noise wouldn’t carry enough to wake his Sleeping Beauty down the hall, it never had before, and hitting something might actually make him feel better.

Eliot padded down to the gym in the basement without a sound. He started stretching out his muscles just as soon as he was in the door and then turned towards the mats and the punching bag hanging from the ceiling. He stopped short of starting any kind of work out when he spotted something on the other side of the room. There was a bench against the wall and more than once Parker had sat herself down there to rest. It seemed she left a book behind, and Eliot went over to retrieve it from the floor where it had fallen.

The hitter wasn’t surprised when he realised the book wasn’t of the fiction kind, since he had found Parker hadn’t the patience to actually bother to read books most of the time. Instead it was a sketchpad she had been working on. She liked to draw and she was pretty damn good at it. Eliot encouraged her when she decided to pick up the old skill and run with it. The holding of the pencils and such, the concentrated movement of her fingers, hands, and arms, it had to be good for her. It helped Parker get the dexterity back in her upper body, and that was no bad thing at all.

Eliot never had seen the pictures his little thief drew here in the gym. Once or twice he peeked over her shoulder when she sat at the table or bunched up on the couch. She would draw pieces of furniture, copy pictures he had on his walls. A couple of times she had conjured up treasures she had stolen in the past from a Faberge egg to a Cloisonné vase and a rough interpretation of her favourite Vermeer. She didn’t draw people much, though Eliot knew she could. Of course, he thought that only because he hadn’t seen her do so recently.

“Huh,” he reacted with some surprise when he let the pages fall open as they had been before and found a perfect portrait of himself, hitting out at the bag across the room.

Curious by now and not thinking about decency or privacy, Eliot turned the large pages over and over in the pad. There was more than one picture of him, and all were very good, but it was the one towards the back of the book that confused him. It did look like him, and yet not. The drawing was of a boy rather than a man, an interpretation of what he might’ve looked like aged seventeen or so, he realised. Of course, Eliot knew better than Parker. He didn’t have long hair back then, and she hadn’t quite got his features right, but she was close, almost scarily close.

Eliot stood there just staring at that picture that was meant to be a younger him, when a crash rang out from upstairs. With the sketch pad still clutched in his hand he bolted for the door and up the steps in record time. He swung into Parker’s room, making quite a clatter himself, only to find her sat on the edge of the bed looking just fine.

“What the hell happened?” he asked, momentarily breathless from the shock and the hurrying.

“I kinda wobbled,” she admitted, feeling stupid. “Put my hand on the table, table went crash,” she admitted, gesturing towards the piece of toppled furniture.

Eliot’s eyes barely shifted from the figure of the woman herself. In the shorts and vest top she slept in, she was all pale flesh and well-toned muscles. Parker was obviously hot and gymnastic in her clothes, but out of them just hammered the point home. Eliot forced his eyes shut to block out thoughts that poured in unbidden, until she spoke again.

“Is that my sketch book?” she asked wish a slight frown, watching the hitter as he looked as confused as she was.

The truth was Eliot had almost completely forgotten the thing was in his hand until she said it. He moved to hand the book over, the both of them staring at the page it was still open on - the picture of a make-believe teenaged Eliot Spencer.

“That’s not bad.” He smiled slightly, meeting Parker’s eyes. “Not exactly how I was but...”

“I was just guessing, doodling, y’know?” She shrugged awkwardly.

Eliot got an idea then, and though he knew it might be his dumbest ever, it was all he had so he was running with it.

“I wanna show you something,” he told the thief, holding out his hand for her to take.

Parker grabbed onto it without hesitation. She never did have a trust issue or a touching problem with Eliot. He was one of the very few people in her life she could say that about, even if she couldn’t explain it. She grabbed the comforter with her other hand, dragging it up off the bed as she got to her feet. Eliot helped wrap it around her shoulders with his free hand, and took her through to the living room, encouraging her to sit down on the couch.

Making herself comfortable, Parker watched Eliot as he searched through to the back of a cupboard on the far side of the room. It didn’t take him long to put his hand on the item he wanted, which she was surprised to realise was an old VHS tape.

“This oughta entertain ya.” He smiled, flipping the video over in his hand before inserting it into the player Parker hadn’t even realised was hidden under the TV.

She really wasn’t sure what she was about to see as the hitter took a seat beside her, pushing his hair out of his face as he pressed play. There was a lot of black screen and crackling picture at first, then a buzz of sound and voices fading in and out.

When the video and audio finally synched up and cleared, Parker saw a bunch of faces, a couple of teenaged boys and a girl. They all wore blue and white clothes, football shirts, she supposed, and a cheerleaders uniform. This was a tape of high school, and she was just going to open her mouth and ask what movie they were watching when an oh so familiar face appeared, speaking in an all too familiar voice.

“Oh my God,” she gasped at the sight of Eliot as he had been aged seventeen.

His hair was much shorter than it was now and his face looked thinner somehow. He was not much like the picture she carried in her head from her own high school fantasy, but there was no doubting at all he was Eliot, from the sparkling blue eyes to the Southern drawl.

Parker leaned forward in her seat, and Eliot watched her watching him as he fooled around with his friends on the screen. They were headed to the Homecoming game, getting all fired up about the win they were determined to get. A couple of cheerleaders stood up in the back of a truck, waving their arms and bouncing around as if they were sugar high. A couple of Eliot’s buddies were talking about thrashing the opposition team, and everyone just looked so very happy.

The film cut after a few minutes, wobbly scenes from the Homecoming game came next, then somewhere dark. The cheerleaders and football players and other teens danced around, cheering happily about their win. Then Eliot appeared again, standing on the cab roof of his old truck, playing air guitar to music that blared from the radio, whilst others whooped and hollered for him. He wore the crown of Homecoming King and he just looked so happy.

“Hey.” The screen went blank in an instant and Parker turned to look at the real Eliot then, only noticing then that she was crying. “I didn’t mean to make you feel worse, darlin’, I’m sorry,” he apologised, reaching out a hand to her cheek and wiping away a lonely tear.

“I’m okay,” she assured him, leaning into his touch without really thinking about it. “You just looked so happy. You almost never look that happy now.”

Eliot’s hand dropped away from her face then and he glanced away.

“Things change,” he said grimly. “People change. Life ain’t a bowl of cherries when you stop being a kid.”

“Life’s not so great when you are a kid sometimes,” she countered with a look he had to face. “I know you’re not perfect, Eliot,” she told him then. “You’ve done things you wish you hadn’t, but we could all say that. At least you got the happy part first.” She shrugged, with a vague gesture towards the now-blank TV screen.

It tore at Eliot’s heart to look at Parker then. She had suffered so much, and so little of it was her own fault. The hitter himself could bear the guilt of all he’d done wrong. In comparison to his reputation that was mostly based in truth, Parker was practically an angel. Sure, she was a thief, the best thief there was, but she didn’t hurt anybody, not really. She had missed out on so much in her life, and Eliot would love to give it to her if he could. Unfortunately, a happy childhood, a high school experience, none of that could be bought or even stolen. What he could do was try to make her future that much brighter than her past. He could love her like she had never been loved before. Eliot had started to wonder if he was capable of feelings that deep for a long time, but if anyone could evoke them in him, it was her.

“Parker,” her name came out much softer than he intended as he lifted her chin with one finger. “Darlin’, if I could give you what I had, all the good times when I was in high school and all, I’d do it. I’d hand it all over in a heart beat if I thought it’d make you happy.”

She couldn’t breathe when she looked up then and met his eyes. The feelings were so familiar and real. It was as if she was transported back to the high school she had conjured in her head, and Eliot was holding her on the dancefloor, the king to her queen. He was going to kiss her, and she wanted him to, more than she wanted diamonds or money or anything at all in this moment.

Parker’s eyes fell shut as she let herself drift forward and suddenly felt Eliot’s lips on her own. It was different to how she had imagined it, but in all the best ways as his arms wound around her, pulling her closer whilst the kiss went on. By the time he pulled away enough to meet her eyes again and let her breathe, Parker felt the very best kind of dizzy.

“Woah,” she declared without thinking about it. “That was different.”

“Good different?” Eliot checked, a smile on his lips that was both amused and oddly nervous.

“Oh yeah.” Parker nodded quickly. “I always thought reality could never live up to imagination but... you do,” she said with a smile, “and then some.”

There was nothing at all for Eliot to say to that so he didn’t try, just moved in to kiss Parker again. She responded favourably, pulling him to her as tight as she could, falling into a moment she would have happily let go on forever.

Her high school dream had been fun, and when she returned from that other world she was sure she would miss it. The truth was, she did miss seeing Archie and poor Frankie too, but the only thing she felt such a desperation to have back was the relationship between herself and Eliot. If he was kissing her like this, it had to mean something, had to mean they were going to be as they had been in her fantasy.

“So, you’re my boyfriend now, right?” she checked, breaking the kiss so suddenly that Eliot almost lost his balance and fell on top of her. “I mean, we’re gonna do this kissing thing a lot now, and I... I have these feeling for you, which you must be having for me too, right? Or is this not what I think it is?”

“Parker,” he cut her off with her name, tone just harsh enough to silence her but soft enough to be kind. “Sweetheart, slow down,” he urged her, tucking her hair behind her ear. “How about we take this a day at a time, and not put a label on it? Right now, we’ll just be Parker and Eliot, and see how things work out?” he suggested. “I know we’re not exactly giddy teens and all, but we got plenty of time, right?”

All Parker could do was nod her head in agreement, before letting herself fall back against the sofa cushions and pulling Eliot down with her, into another deep kiss. No, they weren’t teenagers, and he couldn’t give her what she missed, but that was okay. She didn’t really need the bother of attending classes or going to dances. Parker didn’t have the hottest, sweetest, nicest guy in school to call her own. Instead, he was the best guy in the whole world to her, and right now, all she wanted and needed.


	22. Chapter 22

It wasn’t exactly a surprise party, since Parker knew she was having one. Eliot couldn’t have kept a secret from one as sneaky as her even if he wanted to, so he decided not to try. It was six months now since she had woken from the coma that led her into a high school fantasy, and just a couple of weeks since they got done bringing down Damien Moreau. The world was calm and as it should be for now, and for the Leverage crew that was something worth celebrating.

Parker was almost back to her old self. She wobbled here and there, sometimes literally, sometimes emotionally. The crash and subsequent comatose state certainly took its toll, but had ultimately led to a relationship with Eliot that she wouldn’t trade for every diamond in the world. He made her so happy, she felt like a giddy teen a lot of the time, and if it were possible, he could feel the same when he was with her.

The party was a celebration for the whole team, but still Eliot insisted on making it a special event mostly geared towards Parker. He encouraged her in the shopping trip Sophie wanted to make and wasn’t sorry he had when he went to pick her up and bring her to McRorys. She wore a stunning red dress that shimmered in the light and showed off her form to perfection. Eliot never saw Parker grin so much about clothes in his life, but then he couldn’t ever understand how special this was to her. It was the closest thing she could find to the literal dress of her dreams, the one she had worn when attending Homecoming with a fake teenaged Eliot a few months ago.

“You look beautiful, darlin’,” he promised her as he walked her out to the truck and opened the door for her.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” she replied, kissing him as she slid past into the passenger seat. “I’m guessing most people don’t know what this party is really for,” she said when Eliot joined her, and they both fastened their seat-belts. “I mean, Moreau and everything.”

“We told most people it was to celebrate you, Parker,” he confessed. “I know you don’t like attention all that much but the fact is... well, we couldn’t’ve pulled those cons without you. We... I couldn’t’ve dealt with Moreau without you,” he explained, leaving the car in park as he reached out a hand to her cheek.

She knew what he meant, and it wasn’t all about her help with the job of taking down the bad guy, not this time. Eliot hated himself for his past, for the things he had done when working for Damien Moreau. It had proved right the theory Parker had been holding onto from the start, that the hitter knew more about their enemy than anyone. Now she knew why, but she had assured him that she didn’t care about any of it. They all had pasts, and there were both good and bad parts to that. What mattered was that they loved each other now, and Parker was sure she never loved anyone the way she loved Eliot Spencer.

“We should go to this party already,” she said with a smile then, putting her hand over his at her cheek. “Faster we go, faster we get back. I mean, as much as I’m sure it’ll be great, I kinda like being alone with just you,” she admitted, feeling a little silly just as soon as she realised how dumb that might sound to him.

Eliot leaned over to kiss her lips, proving that he didn’t find that sentiment silly in the least.

“Alone is good,” he agreed in whisper, before turning his attention back to the wheel and the road. “But trust me, babe, you’re gonna like your party too.”

Parker smiled because she knew she should. She would like the party, because Eliot and her team would be there, plus Peggy who she had known since jury duty, and Cora McRory. She would be as comfortable as possible amongst people she knew and could be varying degrees of honest with, plus Eliot had promised cake. In that respect there was no bad.

A few minutes later, Eliot parked the truck across the street from the bar. He rushed around to open the passenger door and took Parker’s hand to help her out. This was her first time in heels since learning to walk again, and whilst he was pleased for her that she could cope on them so far, he still worried about her. He led her across the street and then pulled her own hands up over her eyes.

“It’s not a surprise, Eliot,” she reminded him. “I know about the party.”

“You don’t everything, smarty pants,” he scolded her gently. “Now keep your eyes covered and come on,” he urged her, guiding her with a hand in the small of her back. “Now, take a look,” he said, when he had her positioned in the middle of the floor.

Parker gasped in shock and awe when she uncovered her eyes and surveyed the scene. This was no ordinary party, not at all. The tables and chairs were all gone, opening up a large space for a dance floor. The bar was piled high with snacks, the cake she had been promised, and bowls of fruit punch. Every guy wore a tux, every girl a fancy gown, and a glittering disco ball hung above their heads, bouncing coloured lights all over. Parker turned a full circle, taking in the whole display of wonder, and then her eyes settled on a banner above the bar that stated in large painted and glittering letters - ‘Welcome to Parker’s Prom’.

“Oh my God!” she gasped, putting her hands over her mouth a second later. “This is... Eliot, it’s amazing! Thank you so much!”

She ran right at him, throwing herself up into his arms and grabbing on like a koala. He caught her easily and held on tight, thrilled that he had made her so happy with this plan.

It was always touch and go with Parker. Just when Eliot thought he knew what he was doing, he would up and say something she didn’t like, and there would be a whole debacle of figuring out why and how to fix it. All her talk of high school, the way this whole situation had played out, he was pretty damn sure she would love to have the Prom she never got at eighteen. Seemed on this occasion, Eliot had gotten it just exactly right.

“Oh, look how happy she is,” said Sophie from across the room, her arm linked through Nate’s own.

“Good to see,” he agreed with a smile, patting his girlfriends hand. “I don’t think we have to worry about Hardison quite as much as we thought either,” he noted, drawing the grifter’s attention to a spot behind the bar.

One of the young women from the hire shop that had helped kit out all the guests in formalwear was in deep flirtatious conversation with one Alec Hardison. If memory served, her name was Lindy, and she certainly looked enamoured by the team’s hacker. That was no bad thing as far as Nate and Sophie could tell; they really didn’t want him to feel like the fifth wheel.

There was no turning back in their own relationship anymore since sealing the deal in more ways than one over in San Lorenzo. As for Eliot and Parker, as unlikely a pairing as they may have seemed in the beginning, the love between them was so very obvious now, everyone in the room could see that.

The music started up, thanks to Hardison who was not so very distracted by Lindy as he’d seemed, and Eliot pulled Parker into his arms for a slow dance. The thief couldn’t help but smile at vague memories of the Homecoming Dance she and her boyfriend had attended in her dreams. This was better, of course, because this was actually real.

“So, I know it’s a decade late,” said the hitter as he pulled her in closer, “but how’d you like Prom, Parker?”

“I think I can honestly say... I love it,” she said with a look in her eyes that seemed to mean she was talking about a whole lot more than just this party. “I guess some things are worth waiting for.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Eliot agreed easily, moving in to kiss her lips.

She kissed him back with everything she had to give, knowing she would never get this chance again. Parker had waited a long time to feel this way, believing for the most part that she never would. It was true, she had missed out on a lot in her formative years, but she was making up for it now. She doubted anyone could feel as happy as she did right now, even if they were at a real Prom with a genuine Prince Charming. high school had to end sometime, after four years or whatever. She couldn’t say for sure she and Eliot would last any longer, but Parker knew better than to waste a moment of this time, it was far too special for that.


End file.
